


The Apex of the Worlds

by LyteWryte



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Octopath Traveler (Video Game), The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Agarthans | TWSITD - Freeform, Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Chapters may be edited, Crests (Fire Emblem: Three Houses) - Freeform, Crossover, Fluff, Forbidden Love, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Human Trafficking, Hurt/Comfort, Hyrule - Freeform, Kinda, Knowledge of ALL three games and routes is NOT REQUIRED, M/M, Major spoilers for all three games and routes, Mentions of Violence, Mild Language, Mutual Pining, No betas we die like Glenn, Non-Graphic Violence, Other Characters Not Listed in Tags, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Rating May Change, Semi-graphic violence, Sharing a Bed, Sheikah - Freeform, Sheikah Runes - Freeform, Tags will be added and changed, The Obsidians (Octopath Traveler) - Freeform, The Yiga Clan - Freeform, You Have Been Warned, a human trafficking subplot, and I hope y'all like playing golf with curveballs, and whatever the hell im doing to these games' canon, as you can see im turning canon inside out, but it is recommended, mild grotesqueness, multiple POVs, ongoing, probably, rated M for non-graphic nudity, relative slowburn, semi-graphic descriptions of pain
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:21:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 43,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24733039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyteWryte/pseuds/LyteWryte
Summary: "Can't any of you understand!? My ideals—my actions—will ensure that no-one will ever be ignored, repressed or hated ever again! In a world remade of my command, no-one will hurt or ache.Thatis my promise, for all creation!"After one hundred years, Link has to stop Ganon from rising again, and so too must Zelda. Sidon lives in the shadow of Mipha, while Yunobo thinks himself falling short of Daruk's legacy. Paya hopes to protect the Sheikah, all the while running from the tragedy of her past, and Teba does his part for the Rito by tamping on his deepest calls for righting the world. Riju is lost on how she can lead a people she's left endangered, but Adrian—born of the Yiga—is just as torn between his orders and his heart. Across an impossible distance, Edelgard's fragile dream is loftier than the stars themselves, while Primrose just wants to hide from herself.But...what if they can somehow turn their world—their worlds—on its head? Just what would happen next?"Now, you graceless, blind, insignificant fools! Witness the worlds destroyed and reborn! It will be glorious. It will be...perfection."
Relationships: Balogar (Octopath Traveler)/Original Male Character, Jeritza von Hrym/My Unit | Byleth, Link/Prince Sidon, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Paya & Yunobo (Legend of Zelda), Primrose Azelhart & Therion, Riju & Original Male Character
Comments: 19
Kudos: 37





	1. Prologue

The rain pelts the ground relentlessly, pounding it into mud beneath the ambling legs of soldiers and Guardians alike. Hooves clatter amongst the echoes of lasers that fire across Central Hyrule. The castle is overrun, the Malice and Shadow of Calamity Ganon already proving too much for the stone walls. Beyond the armies, the four Divine Beasts watch—or _watched_ —carefully, each Champion waiting for the opportune.

It could have been a victory.

But Ganon proved too powerful, at the time.

Zelda remembers Link at the frontline, standing as a beacon for the army against the threat. But now the Guardians had overrun Castle Town, long gone up in flames.

Only minutes ago, Ganon wheeled above, raining Malice onto the world below. Only a minute ago, the Divine Beasts had been poised to attack. But now, they stand as monuments to the hopes and dreams of a kingdom that now lies in mud and flames and ash and rubble.

And it had only been twenty seconds ago, that Link had been cut down right where he stood.

And only a moment had passed after Purah, white hair streaked with ash, had pulled the lifeless corpse away from the throng of battle.

And not only a second had gone before Zelda, in a mix of fury and rage and despair and hope for all that had been lost, cast a prayer to the Goddess.

And not even an eye had blinked since she had unleashed her power and sealed the Incarnation.

But now, as Zelda Hyrule sinks to her knees, safe as safe could be under a fallen arch or bridge—where she is does not matter now—she weeps amongst the trampled flowers.

She had failed her kingdom.

Her Goddess.

Her father.

Herself.

Had Ganon been a man or even man-shaped, lying prone in front of her after a _real_ confrontation, she would have stabbed him, in the throat, the chest, the head, wherever she could. Over. And Over. And Over.

For everything he had done.

And everything she hadn’t.


	2. An Isolated Plateau

“Link,”

“Link,”

“Link, are you awake?”

The light is unlike anything Link has ever experienced: golden and green and _impossible_ to ignore. It strikes into the very core of his being and _demands_ to be heard.

But that would hardly matter now, given that he’s awake and feeling all the more awful for it. He’s as conscious as he would like to be at the moment, or at least, he _thinks_ he is, and standing rather awkwardly in a completely black void before a throne.

A throne that is obscenely tall and occupied by someone—or some _thing_ —rather short. Too short for the throne, but who was Link to judge others for their choice of seating?

The woman—or rather, girl, reclined on the throne has her green-and-blonde hair twisted into coils and braids and plaits that are somewhat squashed underneath a peculiar-looking headdress of linked chains, hearts, and tassels.

But all of that, Link reckons, pales in comparison to the eye-mask that she is wearing. It is pointed at the sides, and is a solid band that covers her face from forehead to nose, flourishing into points here and there, a discordant mix of metals and shapes and colours, and only a green flash of light dances from her eyes behind the mask.

“Well it’s good to know that you at least have enough cognitive function to thoroughly examine me, now,” the girl says.

“Oh,” Link says, stepping back as much as one can in an endless void, “I didn’t mean you any offence whatsoever…ma’am,” he adds.

“Mmm. Well, I suppose it is natural for ones unaccustomed to my glorious visage to gander so, but that’s not what I’m here for. How do you believe your mental faculties are operating? Especially after such a slumber. Hmm…I feel that _I_ could use a sleep as…well” She yawns, long and deep.

“I…don’t…know?” Link says, raising an eyebrow.

“Understandable, though you should come to your senses soon I would hope,” she said as the light behind her mask glows brighter. “No matter, all will come in due time, as all does.” She leans forward through an unnerving silence, staring at Link through the mask.

“Your name is Link, correct?” She says, tilting her head the slightest. “I will never grow accustomed to the sound of mortal names.” She glances up, chin lifted. “But nevertheless,” she continues, looking back at Link, a soft golden glow emerging from behind the mask, “it is time to wake, Link.” Her voice falters, bending but not breaking, and oh-so hushed. “Hyrule needs you. And were I bold, I would say that you, too, need Hyrule.” The edges of her figure become a soft verdant glow.

“Wait!” Link says. “Who are you? What is your name?”

She smirks, a small, lost, smile. And fades.

The throne with her.

And Link is left in the void, the void with him, the blackness too long and too deep.

And there is no void at all, just the dark behind his eyes, a pounding through his chest, and a cool warmth surrounding him.

He gasps, blood roaring in his ears, as the waters recede. He’s in a pool, naked, and surprisingly not wet. His breath cuts through the still air, slower and slower, calmer and calmer. He clambers out of the pod. The room is dark, lit only by flowing blue veins in the walls. Everything is the same brown mineral, stone or wood Link can’t tell. In the corner, there’s a pedestal of sorts, and—

“Ah, good. You’re finally awake,” says a figure, cloaked in a brown cowl, standing beside the pedestal. His face is shadowed by the hood, only a nose, mouth, and short grey beard revealed. “So, Link, how are you feeling?”

Link looks askance, eyebrow raised, at the man. “First things first, who are _you_? How do you know my name? And what are you doing in…wherever we are?" He pauses. " _Where_ are we?”

The old man chuckles. “So many questions, Link.” He shrugs. “Me? I’m a nobody, now. You? You're the famed Hero of Hyrule. What I’m doing? I’m here to guide you in your first steps after you wake up. And where we are? This is the Shrine of Resurrection.”

Clarity strikes Link like a bolt of lightning. His mind and body recall a swing of a sword, or perhaps the strike of a beam of light, and the stench of malice on a battlefield.

“Where’s Zelda? The Champions? Is Castle Town okay? What about the knights? Where’s my armour, the Master Sword? Has Ganon been defeated? I need to go to the field. I need to fight!” He stops after the man lowers his head, shaking it slowly.

“Link…” the man whispers. “all that was one hundred years ago. That’s what I was going to tell you. The Champions are dead, Zelda managed to seal Ganon away but his binds weaken each and every day, and Hyrule is more lawless and divided than ever. You’ve been gone, sleeping here, for a century.”

Link’s throat constricts. His breath collapses. He can feel his pulse with every hammering heartbeat. “…What?”

The man slowly turns to the pedestal beside him, and a mechanism in the top turns, and a small tablet folds out. "It is a strange, new world, Link. You need to ensure that Ganon cannot rise again. But first, this is a Sheikah Slate. It ought to be of great help in your quest.”

Link tentatively removes the slate. It turns on, a pale blue glow thrumming from the screen.

“Come, get dressed, we’ll go outside, and I’ll show you the world you need to save.” The old man says.

The light outside the cavern is blinding. It’s barely dawn in Hyrule, the sun a soft golden glow, low in the sky. In the distance, the peaks of the Hebra mountains tower, as does Mount Doom in the northeast. But closer than either, Hyrule castle lies a crumbling shadow in and of itself. Swirls of black-and-red cloud drift about the spires. Shapes, perhaps creatures of a sort, fleet across Hyrule field, almost gliding across the ground.

It’s like stepping into another world, a foreign realm, or a dream beyond a place or time. Pinpoints of blue light are scattered across the hills and plains. Further out, standing like monuments of an age intrusive, are a few towers of sorts. But far closer, is another of the blue points and another tower, much larger.

“We’re on the Great Plateau, aren’t we?” Link asks, after a moment.

“Right you are, my boy.”

“What are the lights and towers?” He steps out onto a ledge, overlooking the plateau. “I remember none of this,” he looks back to the man, “none of this at all.”

The man sighs, letting loose a puff of steam through the cool air. “Look, we’ll go up the Great Plateau's tower, get your Slate registered, and then, with a wider view, we’ll see.” He turns and goes down the dirt path from the Shrine of Resurrection. Link follows, thoughts racing between wonder, confusion, and an overall sense of being lost.

The tower itself is tall, and climbing it takes Link far longer than he had anticipated—however long _that_ was. It’s especially awkward, given that the weak, tattered clothes he wears constrict and chafe with every hand and foothold he reaches. The clouds sail overhead. So too, does the Sun. Link reckons that it’s about middy by the time he reaches the top, panting and sweating after doing exercise for, well, the first time in one hundred years.

But the view is no more disturbing than from the Shrine of Resurrection. He, shakily, takes one step after another, past the pedestal in the middle that has a stalactite above it, until he’s standing on the edge of the tower. The creatures in Hyrule Field still clamber about. Hyrule castle is still awash in a storm of red and black. Yet criss-crossing the land with little semblance of order, are walls. Tall walls of stone, prepared for defence.

They're keeping something out. Or something _in_.

“Disturbing, is it not?” The old man says from behind Link. “Hyrule has been like this ever since the years after the Calamity. Hylians believed that it had been the Rito and their Champion that failed in stopping Ganon, while the Zora and Gorons, for fear of any similar treatment, allied, slowly developing a resentment of the Hylians while a Guardian force divided their border. The Gerudo allied themselves with the Hylians to bolster their forces against the Yiga Clan. And _everyone_ wants to keep the Guardians away.”

Link looks over his shoulder, “Guardians?”

“Yes, Link. Large machines, more like living creatures, that are creations of the Sheikah, that were corrupted by Ganon's malice and turned violent and against all of Hyrule—you’d be ought to remember them, but I take it that sleep has not been kind to your memory.”

“Well it _surely_ hasn’t, given that even _I_ could tell that _some_ thing was not right from the moment you dwelled in consciousness!” chirps a girl's voice, all of a sudden.

“Wha—?” Link cries, eyes wide, heart skipping. “Did you hear that, old man?”

“Ho?” The man says. “What’s this now? I haven’t heard but a bird sing.”

“It was a voice, a voice, loud and clear, _speaking_ to me, though, honestly, somewhat familiar.”

“Oh come on, now, Link, do not pretend that you have no idea who I am, even if we have only met in dreams.” The voice almost comes from within Link's mind, this time.

It’s like a second dawn. Link’s breath comes short, and voice nary a whisper. “ _You_.” But She says nothing, silent, again. A spirit on the wind.

The old man gestures to the pedestal in the centre of the tower. “Well, no matter what you’re going through as a side effect of your slumber, we have smaller things to focus on. Place your Sheikah Slate on the pedestal, underneath the Guidance Stone, if you will.”

Link, barely hearing his words, takes steps that aren’t his own, and inserts the Slate. The stalactite glows blue, and a drop of water gathers at the point. It bulges, taking an exhaustingly long time to drop down. When it does, the Slate absorbs it instantly, a blue glow developing on its screen. In the blink of an eye, a map of Hyrule develops, complete with little pictures of towers and small buildings, each radiating a small blue glow.

“So, what _are_ the small blue buildings? You said you’d tell me, old man.” Link says, sliding the Slate onto his too-tight leather belt.

“Shrines, Link. They’re dotted across the continent, and those near the cities are used as trials and training for children all over. Or soldiers.” Link glances at a shrine on the plateau far beneath them. “And what about those on this plateau? It doesn’t seem like anyone lives here.”

“Well, these ones are used to administer Runes to Slates like yours. To gain the powers of those who are born with them.”

“Runes?”

“Yes, Link. Runes are powerful, and some are passed through blood. There are theories for where they originated from, some say they are works of the Sheikah, but others cite a time far more distant than ours, a time of the gods. If an individual possesses a Rune, then they may be able to create ice from water, or halt a man in place, or heal a person from the brink of death. Runes are power. It is rare to have a Sheikah Slate that can harness the Five Runes of Matter, such as yours, and even rarer to have a child born with one, let alone a Greater one.”

As the cloaked man finishes, Link is quiet. Quiet and alone with his thoughts.

“Do I have a Rune?”

“Perhaps. We’re yet to see. There are ways of finding out.” The old man smiles, creases folding in his cheeks. “But for now, let’s get you your first Rune, shall we?”

* * *

“The Great Plateau Tower has been activated.” Zelda says from the highest room of Hyrule Castle. She’s stopped trying to remember the rooms' official names, or whatever they used to be used for, now that it only stood to a monument of a failure.

“Really, now?” Her father replies from the other side of the room, not looking up from his encyclopaedia. “Are you sure it wasn’t just a trick of the light? Or perhaps your Rune of Hylia has been interfering with your senses again.”

Zelda turns from the window, eyes icy and tired and wavering. “The Rune is reacting to Ganon’s energy from the Castle, just like it always has. Ever since the battle.”

“And that battle is why we’ve been here, somehow, the last hundred years, alive and well, keeping Ganon in check.”

Zelda sighs, leaning back on the windowsill. She wants to get out of the castle again, maybe use the excuse of needing to check the Furnaces—the sacred flames that aided in her binding of Ganon, all those years ago—again. They ought to be waning. She can feel it. The back of her right hand throbs, the mark of her Rune, three triangles arranged to form another, lying there, just under her skin, just out of sight. It always aches when Ganon pushes his bounds, on his best days. And more often now, it aches and cries and screams. Still, the relighting of the furnaces would be such a strange reason to leave, but a reason nonetheless. Oh, if only she could leave somehow!

“I should check the Furnaces.” She blurts out, desperately. Rhoam glances up at her from under his glasses.

“Zelda, you’re one hundred and seventeen years old now. You haven’t left the castle grounds in over half a century—and that was to reignite a Furnace, too. We don’t _know_ what will happen to you now. Now that we both ought to be dead. You have a duty and an obligation to seal Ganon, and that’s why we _must_ stay here where you can still find strength.”

Zelda grinds her heel on the dust-ridden floor, turning back to the window. “I’ll only be gone a short time, and I’ll take very good care of myself. I promise. You certainly can’t do it, and we have the Flamestaff here. It’s attuned to the Rune of Hylia anyway. It only makes sense that if I think the flames wane, I go and relight them.” She looks over her shoulder, out of the corner of her eye. “Please?”

Her father stares at her. Analysing her. Weighing the life of his daughter against the land of Hyrule.

“Only to relight the flames— _if_ they need relighting at all. And only to relight the flames, at that. You still remember where they are?”

Before he even finishes his sentence, “Of course I do. Satori Mountain, Hateno City, and Northern Akkala.”

“All right. You go and prepare yourself, now. You’re to leave at dawn, tomorrow. There’s still a myriad of weapons, food and armour here. I’ll be watching you when you leave. And if you run into any trouble, you are to return here immediately.”

In the span of seconds, it had been everything Zelda had ever wanted.

But now, it felt so quick, as much a loss, an acquiescence, as any.

“Yes, father.”


	3. A Land so Dark and Broken

The corridors of Hyrule Castle are just as dark and broken as they were when Ganon first attacked. One could easily believe that time had stopped. Zelda certainly does, or at least would have, if she cares. Her years living in the skeleton of her bloodline had long numbed any pain she perhaps had, decades ago, when she walks past the dining hall, or a room long unexplored.

Her footsteps echo throughout the stone halls, light taps one after another, reverberating in the crisp air. Ghostly red particles haunt the room, sometimes a tendril of purple smoke coils around a banister or doorway, creeping up from the floor before shortly retreating, as if pulled by a string far underground.

Everything is quiet. Too quiet.

But that’s the way it’s always been. For every minute of every day, ever since Zelda condemned herself and her father to live in Hyrule Castle. Simply existing, hoping to one day waste away.

And Ganon with them.

“Yet we’re still here, one hundred years on, rarely hungry, rarely tired, as if our bodies are stilled as a living reminder of our shortcomings,” Zelda mutters under her breath, her mind her only audience. It had taken her until the death of Hyrule’s hope, Link, to unleash the full power of her Rune.

And she hasn’t come to terms with the new world she’s been living in as a lost person. A shadow trapped in a tower, watching Hyrule split itself in two, then three, all the while under the tireless watch of thirty thousand nights and days.

The kitchen is small, compared to the rest of the castle. If the day were particularly unlucky, there’d be a moblin or two, as well as some lizalfos, on her way down here. But today, there are none. Perhaps there are, somewhere else. She’s not bothered to check.

If there were, it wouldn’t matter anyway. Zelda had spent so much time wandering the halls of her once-home and ridding it of any monstrous presence that to say she has considerable combat prowess is an understatement, as far as she’s concerned.

She weaves her way into the pantry, dust lightly coating her white frock. Pulling a leather-lined satchel from a shelf as she walks in, she opens a cupboard, greeted by an assortment of fresh and dried, meat, vegetables, fruit, mushrooms, and salt. If she wants to make it to Rito Village, she needs at least one or two, “…or perhaps even _three_ day’s rations,” she mutters under her breath. She grabs a few kinds of herbs, two large radishes, some meat, and a small salt grinder. Satisfied, she brings her haul to the kitchen, retrieves some pouches, and readies a knife.

About to slice the meat, her father’s voice cuts the room instead.

“Actually, Zelda, I believe it would be better for the both of us if I went in your stead.” King Rhoam says as he strides into the dingy room. “I just don’t want anything bad to happen to you, and it’s been one hundred years and everything in the tower was simply happening too fast for me to _properly_ understand what was going on.”

Zelda’s grip slips on the knife, but she holds on and calmly slices into the chunk. “I’m more than capable, father.” She stares forward, counting cracks in the wall, as if they were the fractures in her soul, splitting with every further condemnation by her father. “The Flamestaff has only ever been used by those with the Rune of Hylia. We don’t know what would happen if _you_ used it, instead of me.” The knife moves through like paper. She glances out from the corner of her eye at her father. “It _only_ makes sense for me rather than you to go. Besides,” she cuts another slice, “one of us will need to stay to protect the castle, and you know the ins and outs of it far better than I.” She stops for a moment, and looks at Rhoam in the eyes, ice blue at ice blue. Daughter at Father. King towards Princess. The blade severs two final pieces.

“You can’t keep me in here—keep me from the world, trying to protect me as if the land outside our dying castle doesn’t need just as much care and support.” She turns to face her father, voice wavering, eyes determined, closing the red-and-purple-streaked gap between them.

“I’m going, and I’m going to try and work towards a Hyrule where walls don’t _have_ to be put up over a war that everyone was already going to lose. _And_ help destroy Ganon along the way.”

Rhoam Bosphoramus Hyrule smiles, gently, a light twinkling in his eye. He picks up a pouch, grinds a palmful of salt into it, tightening the drawstrings, and places it in Zelda’s satchel.

“In that case, I suppose you can take a parting gift of sorts. Outside the door,” he gestures, “I was going to take them with me, but I suppose that I can’t keep you from Hyrule. Not when you may be its only hope.”

Zelda nearly drops a radish, breath almost caught in her throat. “Please,” she grabs the knife again, swiftly dicing the radish and sweeping the cubes into a pouch, “don’t say that. Not when I can still see his last moments so clearly.”

She quietly leaves the pouch on the counter and goes out to the corridor. Leaning against the wall are a knight’s bow and several arrows, perhaps two dozen of assorted types, a guard’s sword and shield, and a pale white-yellow staff.

The Flamestaff is barely taller than Zelda, its length running uneven, marked with rough rises and smooth falls that taper out at the top to a small cage of sorts, where a blue flame burns bright. She grins at her father, who comes and embraces her from behind. Unspoken from her father’s warm and calloused hands, but Zelda knows that this is hard for the both of them. They never thought they would live this long. They’re living out each day in a fractured Hyrule that can no longer answer to them.

“But I’ll try and be the hero that I never was. The hero we both longed for me to be. A hero to heal a dark and broken land.”

And she goes back—her father with her—to the kitchen bench, both of them counting down the hours.

Counting down the hours until they’re going to be torn apart.

* * *

The mid-afternoon sun dances like it’s the most joyous thing in all of Hyrule across the waters of Lake Toto, and Sidon would love to feel the same way, but he can’t. Any afternoon hour he spends swimming, away from the place _or_ the hospital, is rare and parenthesised with duty, worry, and a looming sense of responsibility.

He pushes off against a ruin and, with effortless strokes through the water, comes up to the edge of the southern waterfall, looking out across Zora’s Domain. The palace’s blue scales glimmer in the sunlight, and the rest of the domain spills out from under it like a surging lake. A fish leaping into water, immortalised in a palace and its city.

A fish, providing a home, a life, and a promise of safety amidst a valley of rivers.

Sidon does another lap of the lake, swimming away from the expectations that chain him, only for them to catch up again.

He catches himself against a sunken wall, grasping at ruined stone, water glistening on his smooth-scaled arms. He pulls himself up, and, scaling a broken column, perches on the edge, the plains of Akkala and Zora’s Domain spreading out beneath him, to the north and the south.

A light sparks in the corner of his eye, perhaps from the Domain.

There’s nothing. The domain is still, the murmur of the city unable to scale the roaring waterfalls. Sidon stretches his arms, feeling his muscles ripple all over,

But then it comes again, a signal from the palace, from the tail-tip of the building—the highest point of the domain.

Sidon groans. He dives off the pillar, swimming to where he left his regalia on the lakeside. It’s probably the king, calling out to his son to come back for some meeting or council. Or Muzu, irritated at the prince’s dallying.

But when called, Sidon had to follow. _It’s what Mipha would have done, Sidon_. He hears his father say, time after time, day after day. _She was always there for her people, and you ought to be there for them too,_

"because I, too, will be king one day.” Sidon says, cutting off his own thoughts—a conscience instilled in him ever since what the Domain loved to call ‘The Accident’.

Never in one hundred years would they blame Mipha, or the Zora in general, for what happened on that day. It was always the Rito, the Gerudo, or even the Hylian army that were to blame for the failure of that particular operation. Ever since Hyrule broke itself apart, and ever since that first alliance between the Zora and the Gorons.

Dressed as much as he is on any given day, Sidon dives over the edge of the waterfall into the pool below, and dives down the next waterfall in the blink of an eye. The spray is light, and the depths of the lake beneath the domain envelop Sidon with welcome hands. The darkness is warm—the water never knows the plight of the world.

Muscles pounding, anticipating a climb, Sidon launches himself up a waterfall. The sunlight pierces the surface and so does he, leaping from current to current until he breaches into his room. He heads to the doorway, picking up his healer’s satchel on the way—hanging it from one dripping shoulder.

He strides into the throne room, stifling the urge to jump out a window. Dorephan looks down at his son from the throne.

“Your hobbies are increasingly unbecoming of you. It would serve you well to guide your time and energy to an activity that is more…productive.” The king says. “But, Sidon, we have a worrying case on our hands at the moment. Muzu, the girl can come in.”

Muzu shuffles in, followed by two Zora guards carrying a plank with a young Zora girl on it. The girl’s skin and scales are pale, and her eyes are shut, almost as if in anguish.

Sidon’s heart plummets, eyes wide. He looks at Muzu, and then to his father. “What are you _doing,_ bringing her in? She needs rest in her pool—her home, and _not_ to be carried around like some twisted ornament!” The guards stop, and Sidon rushes over to the girl. He focuses, picturing the ruins of Lake Toto, and breathes. A faint teal glow spreads on the back of his left hand, spiralling into a glyph of a phial—his Rune. He places that hand on her forehead, feeling her affliction. Her skin is warm. Too warm. Her nerves are all firing. He extends, and a wave of pain slams into his mind. He retreats and breathes. Deep and calm, like the lake below.

A green glow emanates from under his palm, and already he feels her skin cool, her nerves still. After a moment, he opens his satchel, and rummages—looking for a green grass, the slightest thorns laddering the sides, a flower adorning the crest. Nothing.

He curses himself for not replenishing his resources—his medicines and poultices and anything else that could potentially save a life. He looks between Dorephan and Muzu, and back to the girl. He’s brought this upon himself, for being so sort-sighted and _selfish_ and _foolish_.

“She’s contracted a serious fever, and although she’s _relatively_ stable for the moment, she’ll be in immense pain and perhaps even paralysed without proper treatment. In short, she’s accidentally poisoned herself.” He glares at Muzu. “And where’re her parents, her family? Do they know where she went, where she is?”

Muzu sighs. “She was playing with her friends by the entrance to the Domain, and probably ate a plant she found. We don’t know for sure.”

Sidon breathes, suppressing the urge to lecture everyone on how to not treat a patient, but they’ve already done a fantastic demonstration. He needs to get an antidote.

But there’s only one place where he’ll reliably find the components.

“I need to get to Ploymus Mountain. _Now._ ”


	4. The Dreams that Die

Vah Ruta has started causing the most tremendous rainstorm by the time Sidon is halfway along the trail to Ploymus Mountain, the Lightscale Trident in hand. In a moment, the Divine Beast has turned a wonderful afternoon into what can be mistaken for the gloomiest of nights.

Sidon crouches low, listening beyond the rain for any sign of danger.

But he would deserve it, if it happens. He’s brough this upon himself—being careless with his materials. Not putting his work and people before himself.

Not being like Mipha.

Even before the accident, she had been beloved by his father and the rest of the Zora. She cared for those who needed help. In the eyes of all who saw her, she was perfect.

Immaculate. Flawless. The Zoran Ideal.

And it was the Hylians, the Rito, to blame for her death.

Sidon doesn’t have too many memories of his sister. All his life he’s been compared and expected to live up to a person he doesn’t even know. He was a child for the accident.

Maybe that child lives on, somewhere lonely, in the soul of a prince. Maybe it had drowned between a prince and a healer, or simply wasted away. In truth, all Sidon could ever want to be is himself.

The rain falls harder, bulleting the ground and grinding it into a wet slush. Sidon shouldn’t be thinking about these things—this sort of self-interrogation, right now. Especially as he nears the mountain itself. He comes to the edge of Lulu lake and slips in before swimming up the waterfall. The rain merges with the water, creating a wild spray of cold and tepid.

The Lightscale Trident pulses achingly—alienly. So does the back of his left hand. It has been—they have been—the entire way up. Sidon sheathes it across his back and rests his hand on the scabbard at his side. If he must confront the Lynel, he would like to do it without his Rune going off and torturing him.

It had been his father’s idea for Sidon to have his sister’s trident, an ancient Zora weapon attuned to the Rune of Ruto, in order to awaken the rune in him. Greater or Lesser, Dorephan didn’t care—so long as the Rune of Ruto manifested in his son.

So, the masquerade had begun. The hours of smiling—grimacing—beneath the ache of his Rune, whatever it was, were a blend of painful memories for Sidon now. But if there was any reachable or tangible conclusion from all of that, it was that whatever Rune he had,

It was _not_ what the Zora wanted.

The air smells earthy as the grass and dirt was blends to a slush of frost and rain and mud. Sidon can barely hear his own footsteps nor breath as he all but crawls around to the plateau at the summit of Ploymus Mountain. The plateau has few trees, and a lake, all oppressed under the deluge of a cloud-stained sky.

Low in the grass, Sidon sees it—the light flush of yellow and lilac on a subtly thorned grassy sceptre, the flowers standing tall amidst the rain and drop-soaked grass. Sidon all but crawls towards the patch, the rain drowning out any sound. It falls harder now, in sheets, and Sidon’s arms and chest and legs are slick with mud, and he can barely see a foot in front of him. Eyes locked on the flowers ahead of him, Sidon’s breaths come mute and short.

His nose brushes against a purple petal, and he shifts his position, hunching over, satchel in front of him. He quickly, and carefully, plucks the flowers, severing their stems from the ground. The rain shrinks back, falling lighter now. A sixth flower finds its way into Sidon’s bag, and he moves to pluck another—

A shadow—no—a solid form, lurks on the far side of the lake, unphased by the weather. It takes cloven-hoofed step, and another, four legs working in tandem. As shots of sunlight pierce the fading sky, the sword in its hand and bow slung across its back gleam.

 _Please don’t notice me. Please don’t notice me. Please don’t notice me._ Sidon, hand moving paralytically, jaw tight, takes another flower. He crawls behind a rock as the clouds blow over, Vah Ruta finishing its tantrum. He needs to get out, and _fast_.

But the quiet sound of hooves in water is all it takes for Sidon to freeze in place.

_Oh Goddess._

Sidon slings his satchel over his shoulder, and his hand moves to the hilt of his sabre.

His hand aches.

The air moves.

Sidon rolls out to the open.

The lynel’s sword crashes down on the stone and grass unflinchingly, and Sidon has a choice to make: Fight or run.

Fighting, with little armour, two weapons, and no shield, is, understandably, an incredibly stupid mistake, and one that he should make if he wants to become lynel food. Running? There was nowhere to go. He couldn’t go back the way he came, for obvious lynel-shaped reasons, which left his only options to practically jump the mountain, save for the fatal falls on pretty much every side.

The lynel hefts its blade out of the rock, and glares at Sidon, equally annoyed and confused at an immediate lack of Zora for dinner. So it charges. Sidon draws his sabre, dodging the lynel’s massive force by a few blades of grass, and then, standing like a beacon in the sun, rising above all else upon Ploymus Mountain, Sidon feels a well of complex emotions, namely fear, contempt, and anguish, break inside him.

Shatterback Point, so far, was better than being killed by a lynel. But now that lynel stands between Sidon and the cliff. A force of determination, mainly propped up by a rush of adrenaline and mortal terror, bricks up the well.

Sidon breathes, sheathes his sword, and sprints.

From the corner of his eye, the lynel charges after him. The zigzagging path up to the Point is now a fool’s option, Sidon realises as he vaults over a rock, muddy feet meeting muddy ground. The lynel follows, charging up the grass. Sidon weaves behind a tree, clambering up another rocky ledge while the lynel performs an expertly amateur logging operation behind him. The pounding in his chest races with his feet, the rock still slick from the rain. He looks back, and the lynel comes onto the rocky precipice, sizing up the sizable Zora prince in front of it. It takes a step forward.

Sidon looks over his shoulder. The reservoir waters are far, far, below. He takes his satchel off, clinging it to his chest with his right hand. The lynel takes another step. It tests the weight of its sword, and swings, aiming for one princely face.

Sidon pushes off, arcing in the air. The blade barely skims across his muscled abdomen, and then he’s falling.

Falling,

Falling,

Falling.

Sidon can only hear his laboured breaths, the whistling air, and his heartbeat.

The waters of the reservoir are cold but welcome.

The distance between him and the shore contracts with muscled stroke after muscled stroke in the blink of an eye.

His legs carry the weight of everything down the flights of stairs, and down the grassy, mud-soaked landing, and across the bridge connecting to the city.

He still can’t even think by the time he enters the throne room, extracts a flower from his soaking bag, and crushes it in his mortar. He adds it in a phial of water, and, satisfied with the warm green glow from his left hand, wordlessly crosses the floor to where the young girl still lies on a plank. He tilts her head up and has her drink.

“She’ll need rest, and plenty of it. She’ll get better over the next few days.” He says. The words feel alien. The world feels alien. He retrieves a couple more flowers. “And could these please be delivered to the Hospital Greenhouse, for growing and breeding.”

Someone takes them. He doesn’t know who. He doesn’t care who;

He’s had enough of living up to Mipha for one day.

* * *

“No, Yunobo, you _will_ not be going on the next expedition.”

Yunobo turns to Goron Boss Bludo as they walk through the centre of Goron City, the sun sinking in the sky. “Really? What’s the reason _this_ time? You already have enough people? Or are you worried about the ‘only descendant of Daruk’ going out and getting hurt?”

Bludo looks at Yunobo. They’re passing out of the main square and up towards the shrine now. “No, it’s because you’re of better utility _here_ , in the city.” He looks dead ahead, not bothering for the other Goron to reply.

“ _I’m_ more useful here?” Yunobo says, not wanting to shout as to disturb the Gorons actually enjoying their afternoon. “Then what of the Rune of Darunia? Is _that_ not important to have out in the field, whether patrolling Death Mountain, studying Vah Rudania, or even fighting against the Guardians, who control practically _all_ of our bordering regions?”

“Yunobo, I’m the boss here, and I would be questioning my _own_ leadership capabilities if any of those situations was getting out of hand, which they’re not.”

“So what about the _de facto_ trade—and food—embargo that Rudania’s delightfully bestowed on us? Should we not do something about that?”

Bludo growls under his breath. “Yunobo, you know fully well that we can do nothing about such limitations until Rudania has been dealt with.” He shuffles onwards, faster, more impatient.

Yunobo groans, kicking an admittedly delicious-looking rock into a flow of lava beneath the bridge. “Fine, can I at least have Daruk’s journal since you won’t let me _leave_ the city?”

Bludo scoffs, “Oh and _this_ old, broken track! You want to be like him, don’t you, and go on fantastic journeys just like his—well you can already _guess_ the answer from the thousand _other_ times you’ve asked me.”

They come to the crest of the hill, next to the shrine. “Alright, but what if I said that I wanted to just have it to read it, and stay in Goron City—would you let me know where it is if I promised to never ask about going on another expedition ever again?”

A broken, aged sigh of acquiescence. “ _Fine_. You can have it to read as a fairy tale every night, I don’t care, but so long—as long—as you don’t pester—" he spat the word out, “—me. Got it?” Bludo stops on the ledge overlooking a lake of lava. He slowly points to a distant mound of white rock, a winding minecart track snaking to the base of the ledge they’re on. “Apparently the journal is there, somewhere.” He looks to Yunobo. “Daruk wanted to keep it there, well-hidden and defended, for a reason. I don’t know why, maybe you’ll find out, but if you get your hands on it, you’ll need to protect it as much as Daruk wanted it to be.”

Near-ecstatic, Yunobo starts goes down to the black sand beach. “Thank you, boss! I won’t let Daruk down!”

Bludo smiles thinly. “But if the Divine Beast attacks again, come back to the city as soon as possible.” His voice drops, quieter. “I had dreams too, once upon a time, brother. But if what it takes for a brother to reach his dream is to die in vain, is that dream worth it?” He laughs, launching back into a boisterous boom. “Good luck, Yunobo.”

And he turns back to the city, where endless duties await him.

Bludo’s words echo throughout Yunobo’s mind, even as he uses a steel beam to push his minecart across the lake. _Was_ this all in vain? Knowing the thoughts of his ancestor? Quite possibly intrusive, but it was just a dream, an ideal of a world gone by. Still, Yunobo propels the cart along its tracks—all of the explosive propellant is being rationed, for now, in the fight against the Guardians. Even though the Gorons have an alliance with the Zora, Guardian territory still splits the border in two, reaching from all of Central Hyrule right to the middle of the Deep Akkala.

And the Zora don’t help, anyway. They have their own conflict, that boils down to a proxy war of insults, with the Hylians. Something to do with which side was to blame for the Calamity, or even the death of Princess Mipha. It’s all just plain confusing to anyone not in the direct know. And it's probably for the best that it stays that way.

And for the Gorons, practically alone in a fight against a mechanised army _and_ a Divine Beast, perhaps it’s somehow better for everyone.

Well, Yunobo reasons, it would be better if everyone in Hyrule could just get along and focus on preventing the Divine Beasts from ensuring that the Calamity’s return results in an easily-conquerable Hyrule for the sole reason that there’d be no-one to stand in the way of Ganon.

The limitations on leaving the city, for all Gorons, and the inaccessibility of prime gemstones and rock due to one Divine Beast Vah Rudania, leaves everyone at a place where food has to be rationed and money left scarce.

Yunobo can see why so many dreams die in the modern world—having them raises hope. Hope for a future full of improbabilities. It makes sense, really, that Bludo would want to keep everyone alive and realistic at the same time. He can’t afford for everyone to be hoping and dreaming all the time. It’s too cost ineffective.

If that’s even the term for it.

If that’s even a term.

A shrieking, guttural, mechanical cry shatters the sky. The Divine Beast, stopping its march on the volcano, strikes Death Mountain.

The earth groans, the lake spits. Yunobo braces himself in the minecart, and he jams the beam against the track. The cart pitches forward, rocketing towards the cave. The alarms blare faintly in the distance—the warning for the citizens of the city. Then, the moment everyone would have been dreading.

The mountain erupts. Balls of hot lava and fire rocket out of the summit spewing out like some sort of reality-warping, gravity-defying waterfall of doom and death. The minecart screeches to a jammed stop just a metre or two away from the floor of the cave, and the meteors cascade down. Yunobo shuts his eyes, feeling his blood race and the back of his right hand flood with a deep orange light as he activates his Rune. An ethereal barrier forms around him, and he climbs on to the side of the minecart, diving off, his concentration under attack from the burning sensation of his Rune. He comes ashore, lava melting off the shield, dripping onto the dusty floor. A shrine stands tall in the middle, glowing a bright blue in stark contrast to the soft afternoon glow from outside.

The cavern shakes. A meteor must have hit. Delicately, Yunobo glances about at the cave. It’s small, so there aren’t too many places the journal could _be_. He walks around to the back of the shrine. The ground kneads, ever so slightly, the rock giving way.

“Odd,” Yunobo says. He takes another step, and a meteor rocks the cave again. He lurches forwards, falling hard on the ground, which quickly gives way.

Yunobo yelps as he lands on a hard rock surface, only a drop of a metre or so, in a shower of dust and rock and dirt. Slowly standing up, body aching, Yunobo examines the…room he’s found himself in?

The walls are made of solid, clean-cut rock, awash in a shifting silvery glow. Some paces in front of him, a set of stone-sculpted stairs lead to a low altar that’s apparently the source _of_ the glow. Upon it lies a leather-bound notebook—journal, rather—on top of a small round object and a long, thin, block of a similar material to the object.

Yunobo goes up to the altar, utterly intrigued by the entire situation. He lays a hand on the journal, and then

“Hail, Traveler,”

“ _In the name of the Goddess and all things Hyrulean—_ ” Yunobo shrieks, “who’s _THERE?_ ”

“Traveler, ‘tis I, Bifelgan, the Trader.”

Yunobo stares blankly all around him. “That still doesn’t help me in the _slightest_.”

"Verily, but I must be of concurrence. I know neither of who I am, only that I _am_.”

“Oh,” Yunobo says, “could I take this notebook, then, if you don’t mind?”

“For certain, though you ought to take the Coin of Bounty and…the remnant, with you as well.”

The glow from the altar pulses and fades with the rise and fall of the Bifelgan’s voice. Yunobo takes the journal, and underneath, reveals the coin, a pale-yellow disc that subtly shines yellow. And underneath that, a thin plate with some sort of writing only the width of Yunobo’s palm. The writing breaks off at the start and end, rendering its words essentially illegible.

“Alright, is that _all_ you want me to do…Beefellgahn?” Yunobo asks. He turns back to the exit hole. “Or are you having some sort of disembodied identity crisis? Because I do need to get back to the city now.”

“Very well. If you ever want to return here, and speak with me, you may, Yunobo.”

“Oh, so now you _know_ my _name_? Does anyone else from the city know about you?”

“Nay, but I implore you to not talk of me to any others. I yet know not where I am or why therein, and you have more important business to attend to.”

“Ok, then.” Yunobo says. “I’ll come back tomorrow, Mr. Disembodied Voice.”

He places his recently acquired bounty on the ledge and hoists himself up. “…Bye, then?”

“Farewell.” Bifelgan’s says faintly.

The meteor shower is over, but as Yunobo leaves the minecart, walking back to Goron City, he's a cheery demeanour barely containing an increasing wave of confusion. It had all happened so quickly in such a short time. He only wanted to find Daruk's journal, not have an experience of someone crazy, off their head, or crazy _and_ off their head. He hasn’t had much time to process it; A voice with no body, in a shrine underneath a shrine, holding the journal of his ancestor. None of it made sense.

He swiftly weaves through the late-afternoon buzz of Goron City, beelining for his own home. He marches through his door, steams on through, and sits down at his desk and opens the journal, reading it using only the light of the fading day.

He opens it, eager to discover the mind and journey of his ancestor. The first line starts; _Once upon a time, in a kingdom of old, there lay an evil dragon in a ruined castle. It had lived there for a long time, and oft terrorised the land…_

Yunobo reads the rest of the page askance—eyebrows raised; forehead creased. This isn’t the records of Daruk’s journey but the beginning of some sort of fairy- or nursery- tale. He flicks to another page, the paper running smooth under his fingers: _Today I have left Clearbrook, albeit after healing a child with the medicine meant for my wife. I know I have made a choice, but as to if it has helped or hindered the world, I do not. Have I doomed my wife? Most certainly, and I will never be able to live with that for the rest of my life…_

This is just getting ridiculous. He skims the filled pages, and only every other page or so seems to have been written by Daruk himself, the others the fairy-story or the record, each written in the most distinctly different hands.

Yunobo turns to the blank pages—there are several dozen if not more after all the filled pages, completely unsure of what he’s even found.

But then, on the two pages before his eyes, ink and charcoal bleed through into small passages, the words smithing themselves as if out of thin air by some work of spirits or what else.

_I, Tressa, have found this diary of an unnamed man, and plan to travel in his footsteps, exploring the world as I go—to adventure forth and make a name for myself as a merchant!_

And,

 _In a time long passed, in the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, wicked evils and malice scorched the land, the inhabitants fearing for their lives from day to day—not knowing if they would survive the next day, until one brave knight rose up from the common, poor folk, and rescued them from their torments. This is his story_.

Yunobo drops the journal on his desk, standing up, mind racing and disturbed and… _something_. He doesn’t know what’s happening. Maybe he had died in the eruption and this was a hallucination before he finally passed. Maybe he had come unconscious, falling down into the cave.

Or maybe, scariest of all,

this _is_ real, his world _is_ coming undone,

but no matter what,

Yunobo has no idea what to do,

except for maybe paying Bifelgan another visit tomorrow.


	5. Oh, how the Evening Air can be so Cold

Paya is perched on a ledge, on a short cliff, on the path outside of Kakariko Village, with the evening sun having the mountains cast shadows thrice as long as they are tall. Stare flicking from every fleeting shadow to flowing blade of grass. The taste of metal is thin in the air.

The stealth suit is snug, and she would preferably be wearing something looser. With the kind of abilities she has, she reasons that she wouldn’t need to be wearing the garish lavender bodysuit.

 _In my dreams,_ she thinks. A soft evening breeze soars by, like a swallow diving through the sky. The fireflies have begun their descent on the village, their quiet green glows illuminating the streams and the straw-thatched roofs of houses.

It should be any minute—the monsters work like clockwork, after all. The wind picks up, kicking her bone-white hair up in tufts and strands. She exhales, the ends of her breath coiling into steam. The sun paints the sky with blood and fire as it falls further, throwing golden chains and blazing souls into the inking sky.

And then there it is. A moment of reprise undercut with the sounds of squealing and growling. Paya flexes the fingers of her right hand, then curls them into a fist. Every evening this happens. Every evening she has to do this one thing for her people.

She’d happily be somewhere else right now. She wants to be somewhere else.

Somewhere, getting vengeance.

The Yiga Clan are the, to put it lightly, distant relatives of the Sheikah that eschewed the Goddess, chose to worship the new Calamity, and the largest extant threat to Hyrule.

 _It doesn’t help that they’re murderous bastards_. Paya thinks. Then she scoffs. Her years-younger self wholly devoted to Impa and the Sheikah with no comprehension of the world outside the village would have never thought of using such language.

She can’t waste time being meek. Not that she’s been witness to so much pain. And death.

She _must_ focus.

A bokoblin, silver skin striped purple, rounds the corner, carefully. Its spear of bone is sharp. A moblin follows, swaggering.

The first ‘volunteers’ sent ahead from the pack. _It’s a pity I can’t kill them here and now,_ she thinks, _well, I_ could _but that wouldn’t get rid of all of them._ She pulls the mask up, over her nose, and breathes. Breathes and focuses and does her best to ignore the roaring, burning blood running through her veins.

She feels it before the bloodred glow of her Rune shines through her cloaked hand—a thin horseshoe shape, spilling out from the back of her hand. Her blood courses through her body, rushing and aching. An electric sensation dances across the nape of her neck before prickling her skin all over. A low hum fills the air, and then Paya can feel it.

All of the iron and metal that lies within the mountains of Kakariko Village.

Her reach, her touch, extends over and envelops it. Her mind is throughout the chunks of iron, and with a twitch of her hand, it comes.

She darts to the edge closest to the entrance of the village, jumps off, and lightly touches down in front of the bokoblin and moblin. The rest of the pack, at least a dozen, rounds the corner, grunting and squealing. Paya flicks her wrist, curls her fingers.

And, oozing out of the mountainside, a fluid wall of dazzling grey collides with the pair of monsters, turning into sharp spearpoints of an unstoppable force. They fall to purple and gold ash, and Paya brings the mass of iron around behind her, the ends still daggerlike and vicious. The pack stands there, stunned. _What just happened? How did that happen?_ They must be thinking. _But it’s only one girl._

And they charge. And Paya’s ready for them. The fluid-like iron sails around, splitting and fusing in a dance of death, shielding and attacking. All the while, Paya is trying to feel the wonderful taste of a magnetic weapon in the hands of a moblin or bokoblin. But metal could work just as well.

From years of training she’s learnt that you can make anything magnetic if you try hard enough.

Using her Rune always gives her flashes of memory—memories of bending knives, then daggers, then spears, then swords, then axes, and then the iron in the mountains. And that had all started one day when Paya, tired from a day’s work in Impa’s house, pulled a hand mirror through the air. Then, when she had gone crying to her grandmother, Impa had sat her down and consoled her.

_“The Greater Rune of Fluid is one of the most powerful Runes that can manifest in any person. If cultivated in the right ways, it can be an immense tool for help and harm. With the Lesser Rune of Fluid, one can only move metallic objects through the air effortlessly. Yet with the Greater Rune, one can move and control that metal as if it is a fluid itself, moulding and remoulding.”_

Impa’s words echo in Paya’s head as she skewers, cleaves, and crushes with the wave of metal. Her hand, wrist rolling, fingers coiling, is beginning to cramp now. And yet she cannot so much as stop as long as there exists a threat to the Sheikah in Kakariko Village.

So she forges on, her melding tidal wave of iron cresting and troughing. She can feel the monsters crumple, yet she crumples too.

 _Hold on._ She says to herself through gritted teeth. _It won’t be much longer_. Her arms are beginning to ache, her thoughts lag.

All consumed by the tang of metal.

The throb of her pulse. 

She can’t think. Can’t breathe.

Only be.

And then a glimpse of a time long gone; a small girl, alone in a cave, tired and scared and lost—only ever wanting to see another person.

The pain reaches a crescendo, and through a haze of consciousness, the last creature falls. Falls into a pile of purple ash and golden dust.

So too does Paya, collapsing into the arms of a Sheikah Guard. The next watch. That’s the way it’s been for these attacks. Paya takes the largest, and when she inevitably passes out, ordinary guards take over.

A cool breeze wafts through Kakariko village, chilling Paya’s limp, feverish, body.

Paya fades in and out of consciousness, on her bed, with Impa laying a cold, wet cloth over her forehead. She opens her eyes weakly. Through the windows, the twilight sun passes faintly.

“…Did…Did I…?”

Impa just smiles. “Yes, sweetie. You did a wonderful job. There were more than usual too, this time around.” She stands back up, content. “Now rest Paya. You have had quite the day. And you ought to be up bright and early for the shop.

“…Yes.”

And she drifts off, fading into her own mind.

A void, blacker than the night, darker than the shadows of the flames and sky, greets her. A javelin of light pierces, and a papaya tree, thin and tall, is crowned and draped in a falling white light. Roses, bloodred, bloom on the grass at its roots, and on the other side, primroses, a soft white and yellow. The darkness sings. Red streaks the world. The air shatters.

Like a fading and broken mirror, she can see a young girl, no older than seventeen, with white hair, black clothes, and a bright red cape.

More distant, a woman, dark-haired and dressed in scant red, perhaps twenty-three.

It is only a second, but the glance between eyes can last longer than the wind’s breath. Can be so much longer.

The world collapses, cleaving in three, and then Paya is falling. Falling down and up and between and through her mind.

And in her fleeting flight, she thinks of the pain. The pain of bearing her rune. Of leaving her home of ten years. Of learning of her parents and their deaths. Of who she is and who she could be. Of who she was made into.

But it can’t make sense.

Not now, in a nonsense world, where the air is always cold. Cold and real.

There ought to be more controlled things on her mind.

And so, she lets herself slip into sleep. Not caring. Not thinking.

Just tired.

No.

Exhausted.

* * *

The last rays of sunlight soar beyond the Hebra Mountains, and the evening air settles in, chilly. Teba fastens his falcon bow to his back and stares out into the vast, cold expanse of the mountains. He spreads his wings, Rito Village—although it could very well be considered a city these days—standing tall and silent behind him, flickering flames the only signal of any sort of life within. He’s about to take off from the landing, but a rushed and hushed voice stops him where he stands.

“Where do you think you’re _going_ at this time?” Saki whispers, striding towards him. “It’s almost night, and the mountains will be cold. Not to mention that—” she gestures up, to where the giant Divine Beast is still circling. “—Vah Medoh is still problem number one for the Rito.”

Teba sighs, turning to his wife. “The Flight Range. I wanted to get some more training in before I go on watch.” Saki’s eyes widen.

“You’ve been on watch all day! What were you thinking, tiring yourself further?” She comes closer to Teba, stroking the white feathers of his hand. “It won’t do you any good to stress yourself further.”

“But it _would_.” Teba says quietly, closing his hand around Saki’s. “I need to do all I can to ensure that I am in best form to repel the monstrous hordes, as well as search for a way to remove Medoh’s threat.”

Saki lowers her head, thinking. “But I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if something happened to you. And how would Tulin feel? You know I want just as much for you as you do the Rito, but—to put it bluntly—I would hate to live without you.”

“I would too.” Teba says after a pause, bringing Saki into his arms. “And I want to do so much. Defend the village. Quell Medoh. Revive the Rito’s name in Hyrule. If I did all that, and more, I would be happy.”

Saki tucks her head into Teba’s chest, holding him tighter, as though he is some sort of leaf that could get blown at any moment away in the night. “But all of that is so risk-laden. If there ever were a time I would hope you understand the possible outcome of your decisions…” She drifts off, looking up at him with pleading eyes.

Teba opens his beak, trying to say something. Anything. What Saki has said _is_ true. His body is tired, every day and night, barely keeping up with a regiment of training and combat. All because he, well, he hasn’t even told his wife yet, but because he’s trying to find something in his life. Anything. Something to ground him and complete him.

The closest he’s ever gotten is marriage and a child. But still he feels a wilder part of himself gnaw and gnaw. Trying to be the hero that flies in and saves the day in one neat, fell swoop. And yet trying to be as best a husband and a father he can be.

“Then maybe we can set aside some time to teach Tulin.”

Saki lets loose a tear that quickly loses itself in Teba’s feathers. “If only you could ever _find_ time. But all you ever do is train. And it _isn’t_ because of your Rune. We’ve already been over it so many times, but although your Rune, whichever one it is, enhances your strength in combat, it simply cannot create a drive to train and fight like a wild boar!”

She detaches herself and jabs a feathered finger into his chest. “That drive has to come from within there. Every choice you make, each and every day.” She feels the light pulse, beating steady and low.

Then Teba speaks, softly, only for her ears. “And I made the choice to marry you. I made the choice to start a family.”

“I know that. I just wish…” she stops herself. “I know. I know and I love you for that. You were so brave, to put a wish—to put your heart—on the line like that on the hope that your world could become better.”

Teba smiles, touching his beak to hers. “It was one of the best leaps of faith I ever made in my life.” An idea sparks, forming in his mind.

“So fly with me.” He glances up, “low, of course.”

And Saki laughs, hugging her husband, tears welling. “Why not?”

And then the wind is rushing by them, through their feathers, Teba unencumbered by a quiver and a bow, flying as free as possible, with Saki at his wing. They duck and weave around each other, a pair of orbiting stars, around Lake Totori, never daring to gain altitude as long as Vah Medoh soars in the sky. Teba lets loose a soft laugh, delighted to see Saki as careless as she is now, assured that their little boy is sleeping soundly in their home.

The only tell of the sun is the pale blue sky, dotted only by the brightest of stars, that quickly gives way into an inky, indigo mass speckled with stars and the rising moon. The pair of Rito rise and fall in a moment of pure bliss, coming back to the landing from what they can only remember as a fragment of a life without the war, without Medoh, and just themselves and everyone else in Hyrule.

Teba looks at Saki, and knows that she, too, in all honesty, wants a world where she doesn’t have to worry about her husband because he will have no need for a purpose, save for the purpose of simply existing.

Yet watching Saki’s sleeping body, Teba wants to tell her that the world they dream of, the world they want for their young Tulin, can only come about through their hard work and dedication for everything.

He looks out to the Hebra Mountains, and almost takes his bow in hand.

He doesn’t. He’s at the beckoning of two calls. One for the future, and one for the sleep that he so desperately needs.

He relaxes, staring at the ceiling, and then into the dark behind his eyes, as he awaits sleep, and perchance a dream.

And for a moment, before he frees his mind from the prison of the waking day, he makes a promise.

A promise that tomorrow, the future will start.


	6. Discord and Dreams

Adrian crouches behind a rock, not daring to move a finger out of place, or breathe in contrast to the cold desert wind. Otherwise the guards would see him. They would ask him why he’s outside, at night, and if he’s been given an assignment. Once they identified him. A rare perk of having a uniform _and_ a mask, as far as Adrian’s concerned.

The air around the Yiga Hideout is as cold and stale as the desert beyond. The sand is still, but that doesn’t mean anything. The Footsoldiers could be anywhere, lurking in the shadows and between the winds, ready to leap out in a flurry of paper and light. Adrian would just tell them that he has a mission.

And he isn’t wrong.

But it isn’t right.

Then again, they would know better than to demand anything of a Blademaster. Of Adrian. With a tall, solid and well-built frame, he doubts that anyone would dare to challenge him. Especially behind the mask. _Yet_ , he thinks, _I’ll be more likely to be murdered out in the wild if I wear it._ But even still. If they even thought he had doubts, they’d drag him back to the Hideout.

He smoothly slides down a dune, his windcleaver, strapped across his back, barely skirting along the sand behind him, his satchel knocking at his hip. Adrian squints from behind the mask as he comes out from the shadow of the valley and into the silver-lined desert, the moon only young in the night sky. The stars are seldom visible, only twinkling—no, dancing—betwixt the clouds above and the lunar halo to a tune of discord and dreams.

“Focus, Adrian,” He says to himself. He comes to the crest of another dune and takes a knee, scouting the desert beyond. In the distance, Gerudo Town, although it has grown into more of a fortress-city in recent decades, flickers like a waning candle with the far-flung lights of fires winking in the walls. It’s getting stuffy in the mask. He’ll have to take it off, sooner or later. Especially with the whole ‘more likely to get murdered schtick.’ He glides down the dune, and spies a nearby cluster of rocks.

He kneels down in the coarse sand, taking his gloves off. His pale hands take in the air, the cold beginning to bite at his fingertips. He’ll have to work quickly. Fingers nimble, he unclasps his earrings—the heavy horns of bone mandated by Kohga’s ridiculous dress code, that also happen to fasten down the mask. Adrian’s fingers run up the rim of the mask, and he takes it off, breathing in the fresh night air. He places the mask in the sand, staring at the upside-down eye.

The symbol of a rejection of everything Hyrule used to praise. A symbol of embracing the chaos and turmoil of a new world. And, for those devoted few, a symbol of the one to bring the new world to fruition. Calamity Ganon. And for him, the symbol of a group lost inside their own heads, convinced that their way is the best way. The only way.

Adrian pulls back his hood, and in a fell motion, lets his hair down too. The white strands fall to his jawline, brushing tenderly against his skin. He stays there, amidst the sand, just for a moment taking in the freedom of the breeze against his face. He shucks off his windcleaver into the sand, takes off his boots, and reaches around to his back, finding the fasten of the uniform. At the undoing of only a few buttons, the form-fitting bodysuit crumpling into a heap on the sand below, leaving only a short-sleeved hooded undershirt and tight leggings.

And Adrian laughs. A sound set loose into the night, chaotic and free. It’s all so ridiculous. He’s going out in fulfilment of a mission, or in abandonment of the only world he’s ever known. It’s ridiculous. He could set himself free now, but where would he go?

He still remembers the young boy he was, curious about all the people that looked the same. Well, to a child’s mind. As he grew, gaining more muscle in the past decade, he learnt that everyone simply wore the same clothes, that it was a mission of anonymity to bring to Hyrule an age of liberation foreign to Hyrule for at least ten thousand years. If that was ever their true goal.

“ _Our goals must not be stopped—they cannot be stopped._ ” Kohga had said, for the education of the children such as Adrian himself. “ _Anyone who thinks that they are doing Hyrule a favour by exterminating us from the surface of the world is wrong. Through the Eye of the Yiga Hyrule will reach perfection. Only through the Eye of the Yiga will one see true._ ”

“Only through the Eye of the Yiga,” Adrian murmurs, the words filled with nothing but the devotion of an innocent child, looking at the eye on his mask, sand running over it, beginning to reclaim it.

He pulls the undershirt over him, barely noticing his muscles as they ripple with the motion. He lets it fall to the sand, the grains running through the fabric. Another breeze comes, and a tickle of gooseflesh darts across his chest. He stands and pulls off the crimson leggings, the fabric rolling cleanly off.

The entirety of his body, naturally tan yet pale from only ever getting barely enough sun in the training arena, is exposed to the night. The wind picks up, and more sand piles onto the discarded clothes. Adrian gasps as the coolness dances all around him across sensitive skin, and he grins, almost on the verge of giggling uncontrollably. All those years ago, growing up in the Clan, he would have never thought that one day he’d be where he is now. The mere thought is ridiculous.

The ecstasy of the moment fading, Adrian kneels down, the sand soft but rough to skin that’s never touched. He opens the satchel, rummaging for his change of clothes. He finds his undershorts, as well as a set of ‘voe armour.’ He’s still not entirely sure how it ended up in the Clan’s storeroom, quite possibly with one of the footsoldiers dressing up as a woman to enter Gerudo Town, but that’s irrelevant. All that matters now is, well, the now.

Working quickly, Adrian finds himself in a slightly too-small pair of loose pants, the waistband barely reaching above his hip bones. The green, metallic shoulder piece is uncomfortably cold against his skin. He finishes the look by tying up his hair in a golden clasp, strands still falling beside his face.

He straps a short sword in its scabbard to his belt and folds his Yiga uniform into a pile before shoving it into a dune. He stands, looking out across the desert.

In the far distance, a wicked sandstorm rages, flashes of purple lightning streaking through the night as Divine Beast Vah Naboris strides around aimlessly in the midst of a sandstorm of its creation.

 _I’m here for a reason_. He reminds himself. He looks to Gerudo Town, and back to the Divine Beast. He can do anything. Wander anywhere. 

He can fulfil his mission.

Or not.

He can help or hurt.

The Divine Beast can wander anywhere in the desert. The Gerudo are a people too, held to the potential mercy of Naboris. He’s heard whispers, back in the Hideout, some louder than others, of a plan by Kohga’s design. And his rejection of it.

Adrian can go with one plan or another. Take matters into his own hands.

“I’ll think about it on the way to Gerudo Town.” He says, half-heartedly, a breath on the moonlit wind.

And he runs and slides and glides across the desert, with the grace and stealth of anyone raised in the Yiga Clan, out into the night. 

Across the dunes, his mind a place of chaos and wandering. Of duty and dreams. Of loyalty.

Or of the forsaking of a broken, mindless world and people that only bring destruction with its every move.

* * *

“Riju, you ought to sleep. It’s getting late.” Buliara says, steps ahead of the Gerudo chieftain as they walk through a backstreet of the town. Riju stops where she is, digging her heel into the stone, hand on hip.

“It’s called _patrol_ , Bul.” She says, cocking an eyebrow. “Y’know, making sure that my people are _safe?_ ” She sighs, her breath forming a faint wisp of steam in the cold night air, before taking her decision in stride, past Buliara. “Besides, I want to do everything I can to ensure that safety. As _best_ I can.”

“Of course, my lady,” She says. “But not for too much longer, you do need rest. After all, you’re still mortal, like the rest of us.”

“You know I think that that’s not enough. It can’t be. I have to go further, to ensure that nothing _awful_ happens to anyone due to something I’ve done ever again.”

The air is a soft musk of the smoke from fireplaces, mingled with the desert’s crisp air and the dust that lines the streets. High up on the walls of the city, the hushed voices of the Gerudo on patrol can be heard. And far above, the moon is climbing but is nowhere near its apex. Not yet.

Perhaps Riju will still be up when it is.

“I know, my lady.” Buliara says quietly. “I know that you want to do the best you can for our people. Yet the past remains the past, and all we can do is strive every day for the future.”

Riju all but cackles. “Bul, it might be getting a _bit_ too late for philosophy like that,” she says, her grin a façade for the crumbling well inside her.

_To change the past._

It would be all that Riju has ever wanted. To go back and undo every mistake that she’s ever made. As chieftain of the Gerudo, she ought to be a perfect pinnacle of her people.

 _And I’ve been anything but_. She thinks. Perhaps her naysayers are right. She’s only a teenager, less than, to be honest, and chieftain. She can’t possibly govern properly.

 _No._ _I have to be better than them. I must do whatever I can to fix the problems of my own making._

“Let’s go past the barracks, Bul,” she says, coming to a stop at an intersection, glancing at the flickering torches in the main square beyond.

“But my lady,” Buliara says, coming next to Riju, wanting to keep her as safe as safe can be. “why would you want to do that?”

“To see how the soldiers are faring.”

“But we really should be getting back to the palace.”

“So then it’s going to be on our way.” Riju says, a smile ghosting her face. It won’t do much, but it helps when everyone around her needs to think that everything’s all right with their chieftain.

As Riju and Buliara enter the training ground, the air becomes thicker, earthier. A few lone soldiers are still drilling their spearwork, taking care to not clash in the night, only moving amongst the swirling sand and dust on a swift night breeze. They curtly nod with a few quiet murmurs of “Sav’saaba” before going back to their training. Deeper in the barracks, Riju wordlessly and seamlessly walks past soldiers, the passing world just a blurry stain, rolling and weaving, only working its way in front of her destination. Only when she heaves aside a thick woven curtain and steps into the infirmary, does the world come shattering into clarity for her.

Lying on beds like shadowed apparitions, a cruel imitation of life, is a full battalion of soldiers. Their faces tell the compelling lie of sleep, but the yellow and purple that jumps under their skin from nerve to nerve and muscle to muscle is the only betrayal of such a dream.

Buliara comes in behind Riju silently, only hoping that the thought of her presence assures her. Without turning around, without moving a muscle, voice melting to the edge of hoarse, Riju speaks.

“This is why, Buliara, I need to try my hardest at being chieftain. These vai are lying here on the verge of death because of _me_. Because _I_ sent them to Naboris. I went after them. Alone. We all know that. In a moment of weakness, I went out alone and the Thunder Helm got stolen. We can’t save them until Naboris is stopped, and we can’t stop Naboris until we get the Thunder Helm. I’m not leaving the city or my people until I can get the Thunder Helm back.”

She comes next to the nearest soldier, resting her hand on her forehead. The soldier’s skin jumps between hot and cold, sparks flushing. Riju looks back to Buliara, eyes hollow, on the verge of tears. She’s tried so much, yet the more she tried, the worse _everything_ became. The worse everything had become.

“Let’s go.”

Buliara doesn’t need another word to leave with her, only feeling that Riju must’ve only come here to guilt herself, and drive herself for the days, weeks, and years to come.

The air is colder outside while Riju walks up the palace stairs, alone with the weight of her thoughts and failures. Mindlessly, she says _sav’orr_ to Buliara, and takes step after step outside her own body upstairs. Under a veil of fatigue, she hardly feels the striking ache under the skin of her right hand. The Rune of Nabooru, a swirling circle with the stylised head of Vah Naboris in the centre stares up at Riju.

She stares back.

And lets her mind loose. She can feel the sparks in her nerves, the static in the damp air, Buliara downstairs, and further away, a broken sense and crumbling dream of the alien electricity writhing throughout the bodies of the soldiers she’s led astray.

And a foreign one. A nervous system unfamiliar. Within her bedroom. Clarity strikes Riju like the most unfortunate of thunderbolts, and focusing the energy of her rune, steps into the chamber.

“I know you’re _there_.” She says, bold and focused. The spark moves around her, and she does too. “You don’t need to hide. I can _feel_ you.”

Her mind freezes. Her body freezes. Her breath stops. She can see, but her vision is only as still as the blink of an eye. She feels like she’s bound in chains. Held down against her will.

And not a moment later, a voe stands before her. Out of thin air. He’s tall, muscular, dressed in Gerudo-style armour. And, from behind desert-gold eyes, looks scared. Unsure, uncertain. Lost in himself. His hair is stark white. The sparks in his body are racing, his breath light and coming in droves.

Without thinking, Riju leaps. She takes the man into a choke from behind his head, taking him to the ground, and places two fingers of her right hand, her Rune flaring, against his neck.

“ _Who are you, a voe, to intrude upon this city and invade its Chieftain’s quarters?_ ” She says, against his ear. “ _Answer me, voe, or you shall face the Bolt of Nabooru, never to see the light of life again._ ”

The man shudders, on the edge of hyperventilation. Riju examines his hair, his build. “You’re Sheikah, are you?” Except it would be most _peculiar_ , don’t you think, for a Sheikah to make their way _all_ the way to this town?” She lowers her voice and digs her fingers into the man’s neck. “Isn’t that right, _Yiga_ _Clansman_?”

“My lady…” the man says, struggling to breathe, “my name is Adrian, and…yes, I _am_ from the Yiga Clan, you’re _absolutely_ right, and I have a proposition for you.”

Riju scoffs, then spits out a laugh. “A member of the Yiga _wants_ to talk to _me_?” She lets electricity dance along her fingertips. “I’d rather believe that the world was coming to an end.”

“No, I mean it,” Adrian says, voice wavering. “I want to help you. The Gerudo.” 

“You’re going to need to do a _lot_ more than that to convince me,” Riju says. “So, I’ll give you that liberty, but you’ll need to do it soon. Otherwise—” she pauses, letting sparks dance across her fingers. “—we’ll end up with one more member of the Yiga Clan in their rightful state. Dead.”

Adrian gulps, as much as he can while Riju chokes the life out of him. “Ko—Kohga wanted to steal the Thunder Helm—” he heaves his words, “—to use its power, whatever that means. But…but something happened. I don’t know too much, I only heard rumours from higher-ups in the Clan, but Kohga ordered the chief footsoldier to take it somewhere else. Somewhere else in the Gerudo Desert. It’s an heirloom, right? But there’s got to be something more, isn’t there? Why would Master Kohga want it for its power?”

Riju keeps her hands where they are. “If I told you, what’s to keep you from taking that information back to the Hideout and telling all of your friends what’s so special about it?”

Adrian sighs shallow, mind and voice running a marathon. “I suppose you literally have no reason to trust me, so I’ll say it plainly. I think I know where the Thunder Helm is. I know it’s important to the Gerudo, and I’ve been having my own doubts about the Yiga. I know you won’t trust me so for all I care kill me now.”

Riju loosens her grip. “Hmph. Alright then.” She smiles slyly. “Can I ask how you appeared out of thin air? It wasn’t the usual Yiga party trick, so—”

“I have the Greater Rune of Chains.” Adrian says, bluntly interrupting her. “Allows me to, y’know, freeze things in place. People, too.”

Riju says nothing, simply thinking. This man could be lying, he has no reason to hold allegiance to the Gerudo. This could be all part of some larger plot on the Yiga's part.

But, then again, _any_ chance is better than none.

She sends a burst of electricity through his body, seizing him up. She gets two sand seal leashes, near the toy one in the corner, swiftly binds up his arms and legs and takes back the spark from his body.

“We leave in the morning. For now, you can enjoy the night like that, on the floor, right where you are.”

Adrian turns his head to look at her, eyes a mix of bewilderment, understanding and fear. “Isn’t this just a _bit_ excessive? What do you think you’re going to accomplish with this?”

Riju perks an eyebrow and heads to the doorway. She turns back, hand on hip. “It’s a precaution, and it’s not every day your sworn enemy asks to help you. Besides, if you try anything funny,” she clicks with her right hand, electricity dancing between her fingers. “I think we can both guess what’s going to happen.”

She leaves the room, shoes clacking against the stone. As she comes down the stairs, the air is noticeably colder, and moonlight falls in sheets through the throne room. She walks with a skip in her step to Buliara’s quarters and knocks before entering.

“Bul,”

“What is it, Riju,” Buliara snaps back. “I thought you were going to sleep.”

“I am,” Riju retorts. “But could you please organise a sand seal for early tomorrow morning, perhaps for around five or six o'clock?”

Buliara comes to Riju in the doorway, hair down and in her nightclothes. “Alright, my lady, but may I ask why?”

Riju just smiles, her eyes gleaming. “I’m leaving.”

Buliara creases her brows, before realisation dawns upon her. Her mouth falls open. “Yes, my lady.”

And Riju walks back to her quarters, to where Adrian is already on his side, trying to make himself as comfortable as possible. She looks to her bed, where, in all honesty, there _are_ too many blankets for a warmer night like tonight. She tosses one on to him unceremoniously.

“Don’t think that I did that because I trust you. A hypothermic half-dead Yiga Clansman is far worse and less useful than an alive one.”

“Fair enough, but this blanket is still scrunched up. It won’t keep me much warmer.”

Riju can’t believe she’s going over to Adrian and spreading out the blanket she threw on him. Then, she collects her nightclothes, leaves her room to get changed, and comes back, extinguishing the torch on the way.

Half-automatic, half-realising the situation she’s in, Riju says, half-heartedly, “Sav’orr, Yiga guy.”

Adrian grunts, a half-sound. “It’s Adrian, chieftain—”

“Riju, actually.” Riju says thoughtlessly. “My name is Riju. Oh, and,” she says as an afterthought, “how did you even get up here in the first place?”

“I climbed.”

“Makes sense, I suppose.”

“Right, right. Sav’orr then, Riju.”

His pronunciation could do with some work.

But more than that, as Riju drifts off to the clutches of sleep, she thinks, and wonders, and dreams,

_This could be the chance._

_But this could be an easy way out._

_I could be rushing this too much, making a decision too bold and rash, trying too hard._

_But it could be the solution I've wanted for so, so long._

_What exactly_ am _I getting myself into here?_


	7. And Yet in a Moment

Link sits back against a wooden wall of the Old Man’s hut, watching a metal spoon float up and down in tune with his Sheikah Slate, the Magnesis Rune pulsing a bright red. He slides his thumb across the handle of the Slate, switching to the Stasis Rune, a mindless grin spreading across his face as it freezes in place, enveloped in a golden glow. It stays there, stuck in the air, until the glow fades and it collapses to the ground, soundless against floor.

The Old Man sits near the cookpot, quietly staring, contently watching Link in his moment of bliss, only hours new into a wide and broken world he’s yet to know. So full of innocence. So full of light.

Link levitates the spoon again, fascinated by the sheer feat of technology being accomplished in front of his eyes. Soon after, he eagerly watches a sphere of blue light compose itself before him, dense yet impossibly light, the force of an explosion straining beneath the surface, rippling gently under Link’s fingers.

“I _would_ appreciate it if you didn’t send us to the bounds of Hyrule, Link,” the Old Man says, quietly.

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Link says, a chuckle ghosting the edge of his voice. He watches as the bomb collapses into strands of light. Strands of light that quickly fade into the Sheikah Slate. The afternoon had been tedious, filled with all sorts of climbing and battles, and yet the rewards had been guidance and a gateway into a world torn by one hundred years of war. And the Runes, too.

“Why?” Link asks, out into the room. “Why do I need the Runes?” He looks to the Old Man. “You told me that they’re powerful, but why do I need them? Shouldn’t my swordsmanship and skills be enough to handle whatever comes my way?”

The Old Man turns to Link. “You need them to become powerful. To become the biggest chance against Calamity Ganon in all of Hyrule. To become the Hero Hyrule needed.”

Link whispers, barely audible over his racing pulse. “To defeat Calamity Ganon. That’s what you want me to do. To do the impossible. To do what the Zelda, the Champions, _and_ I couldn’t do one hundred years ago.”

“He’s trying to reincarnate. When he becomes free of his binds, he will assume a new form and destroy Hyrule in the blink on an eye. You _must_ stop him.” His voice quivers, edged with fear and pleading.

Link slots the Sheikah Slate onto his belt. “How? How should I go about any of this?”

The Old Man looks to him with shadowed eyes. “By gaining the powers of these Runes. We’ll get the fourth and final tomorrow. Then, perhaps you could try to find the Sword that Seals the Darkness. But apart from that, beyond that, I could only speculate.”

Outside, the wind blows, a moan of the night, a serenade to the moon high above. The Old Man sighs, chuckling to himself. “But that’s all something we ought to worry about right now. Come, get a good night’s sleep and we’ll continue in the morning. And,” he picks up a bundle of cloth from beside him, “I’ve even got you something to keep you warm.’

He throws the doublet towards Link. Link watches as it sails toward him. He shuffles to the side to catch it, and—

He can hear his heart. Beating long moment after long moment. The air holds still. The doublet is falling at a snail’s pace. The sounds of the wind become long, low, and impossibly drawn out. His throat constricts. His blood aches. The back of his left hand flares in pain and utter anguish—an overwhelming sensation, a tidal wave of nausea and—

It stops. The moment it starts it stops.

The doublet collapses into Link’s lap. He puts it on, his mind blank. Empty. He stares at the floor beneath him. Whatever had just happened, it hadn’t been normal. He’d never _ever_ experienced something like that before. Never felt time collapse to the rate of honey dripping down a metal spoon.

A wave of nausea rolls over him. A swell of fatigue rises, threatening to drown him.

“Link,” the Old Man says, “are you alright?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Just tired, that’s all. Like you said,” he smiles shallowly, “I need sleep.” He crawls his way to a bedroll, warm, snug and comfortable in the doublet, curls up, and waits for sleep to claim him.

Only to be met with a blackened void and an emerald throne. She doesn’t look any different than this morning, head resting on her hand, in turn resting on the arm of her throne, looking out into the darkness. Still with a soft set mouth, a crown too big and too weighty for her figure, and a tangled mass of green and gold hair. She still looks lost. Even behind that collaged mask, She still looks lost.

“Hi,” Link says, words barely finding substance in the air, “again.” She turns and looks at him. Behind the mask, flickers of green light twinkle.

“You,” She says, “again,”

She readjusts, leaning forward now. “How are you, after such an arduous day? I felt your struggles, from time to time,”

Link smirks. “Not too bad, no. Just…A lot to take in, all at once, none of it making too much sense.”

She simply stares back, in a sort of tired way. As if she never heard his words. “My mind and soul are a constitution of voices and hearts and dreams, tangling over one another in a wild and pointless race and act of desperation to exist in a world that is colliding and recolliding while at the same time fading like the death of the death of a dying star. And yet. And yet I think and in a window of clarity can see all as it is and was and is meant to be. And yet. And yet in but a moment, all is lost and so are we. And yet in a moment I have remembered names.”

Links stares at her, awash in confusion at the girl before him. “Which names, if I may ask? Yours?”

She doesn’t react, falling down the well of her mind.

“Yes. Just one. But one. Sothis. I understand that a name I hold is Sothis. I have also been called the Beginning. The Golden. Yet there are so many more—evermore— titles. It is all confusing and confusing and confusing still.”

Sothis tilts her head, and for the first time within the void, Link finds his soul under scrutiny, as if Sothis is examining the very fabric of his own existence.

“You need to sleep. I need to sleep. Once slept, things shall become clearer. Or not.” Her voice chimes, like some sort of ancient instrument.

And then she’s gone, vanished into the void of Link’s mind.

So, Link falls, an invisible ground beneath him giving way, the throne a rising anchor and beacon, as the darkness claims the night.

* * *

Edelgard is pacing. Pacing back and forth and both again. Striding across her room, sleepless. _Had_ she simply imagined the faces and voices of others in a shattered realm? Or had they been real? Was there another with hair as white as hers, the mark of an eye taking full purchase on her forehead? And was there a woman, eyes burning with the familiar scent and steel of vengeance that Edelgard herself sees every time she looks in a mirror?

And if it had been real, were those women from Fódlan, or somewhere else in the wide and unexplored world? If they even were from this world. Perhaps there are others, beyond the curtain of time and space, or—

“No, Edie,” she mutters to herself mid-stride, “don’t be ridiculous. There _can’t_ be other worlds. The very idea is absurd.”

_Besides_ , she adds in thought, _you have better things to worry about than women you don’t know, from places you have no reason to care about. If they even exist at all. That’s it,_ she decides, _they were figments of my imagination from an intense fever dream_.

But.

She remembers Hubert, one day, dismissively telling her that their, albeit reluctant, allies, who they call ‘those who slither in the dark’ had been foolishly working on a way to expand their power and influence beyond this world.

They had laughed it off then, dismissing the idea as absurd.

Edelgard is pacing faster now, her footsteps pulsing—beating—like some imperial heart.

What if there were other worlds?

What if they held some threat to her reign, her plans, her goal?

Needless to say, she doesn’t sleep until much, much, later.

* * *

The desert air is frosty cold, but Primrose doesn’t mind, from her position on the wooden windowsill of a room above the Sunshade Tavern. Not after her vision. If it was even that. Honestly, the moment after it happened, she’d done her best to forget it. But the night brings forth everything she doesn’t want to think about.

Her father, her house, and now, the piercing stare of a scared young girl, an eye tattooed across her forehead, just as lost as the other. She had seen it in their eyes. All three of them, called to that tree, across continents or worlds Primrose doesn’t care, with the same look of wanting. Wanting for justice. Wanting for vengeance. Wanting to find a foothold in the world so that they don’t get swept away like grains of sand in the midst of a storm.

Earlier that day, a man bearing the mark of the crow, the mark of those that had killed her father all those years ago, had come to the tavern. She had taken it as a chance for vengeance, to find a purpose to fill her life beyond dancing.

She tried to not think about how the corpse of her old master—Helgenish—now lay buried in the desert sands, the grains washing it away.

She looks back into the room, away from the desert, away from her actions, and away from the moon above, where the travellers that had arrived in the city late into the evening, slept soundly. A huntress, a cleric, a scholar, an aspiring merchant and a warrior. The five had banded loosely, apparently selflessly deciding to help one another in their trials and tribulations and struggles across Orsterra.

A foolish and time-poor investment, in Primrose’s opinion. She’d only let them stay in the tavern because they needed somewhere to stay the night. She wouldn’t be leaving with them in the morning. At least until she’d made her way to the window, thinking over her life.

She could use the help. Assistance. Backup. Whatever half-assed noun she could tack onto the hodgepodge band of people. This could be her chance. Her way to finally make her dream of vengeance for House Azelhart come true.

“I’ll think about it,” she says to herself, barely above the whisper of the wind, her voice quiet and smooth. She goes back to the window, watching the desert silently, like a hawk.

Watching herself. Her soul.

And she thinks of her dagger, in the scabbard on her waist, that killed Helgenish earlier today.

_Faith shall be your shield_.

Those words engraved into the blade and her mind.

So, she analyses herself. Examines her soul.

To perhaps, on a whim, make a leap of faith.


	8. First Reprise

_Beyond the world’s shattered edge,_

_Beyond the world’s forlorn core,_

_Lies the world’s fallen ridge,_

_A realm of realms, without law,_

_Across that broken, rose-wreathed bridge._


	9. A Promise and a Lie

The morning air is crisp, the taste of rain faint but strong and solemn in a barrage of clouds threatening to break apart. The stone stairs of the docks of Hyrule Castle are damp, the moat languid, rolling in on lapping waves, painted with the reflection of the faintest predawn sky. And Zelda can’t be happier.

Under a hooded, pale brown cloak, she’s wearing her blue tunic and beige pants, from her long-lost and faded days of research. For now, her hood’s pushed back, her hair in a loose bun. Zelda keeps her smile hidden from her father, who’s following behind her, stern and still markedly ambivalent about the entire operation.

Zelda descends the final stair, Flamestaff in hand, and comes to stand at the water’s edge. Beyond the cave entrance, the sky is a dark blue, arcing above a world yet to wake. There is a raft that’s loosely tied to the dock, constituted of logs tied together and a flimsy mast and sail. Zelda grips the satchel over her shoulder, the fabric rough and distracting. Tentatively, but with determination in her heart, she steps onto the raft.

“I still do not know my exact thoughts,” Rhoam says, eyes shallow, “on your venture,” He moves, closer, and takes Zelda’s hands, “but please, don’t be gone for too long.”

Zelda smiles, and glances down. “I promised you, remember? I’ll only be gone for as long as I need to, and only to rekindle the flames.” She looks up, blue eyes to blue eyes, like to like, father to daughter. “And then, I’ll be back. I’ll be back as soon and fast as possible, okay?” She steps closer, and across the smallest gap of water, embraces the king. No. Her father. For the first time in over fifty years, they would part again. She would leave the only home and family she’s ever known; out into a world she’s only seen glimpses of ever since the Calamity.

She can feel a trickle, a tear, escape from the corner of her eye, buried into her father’s shoulder. The grip of her arms tightens—she can only do so much while holding the Flamestaff. She squeezes, but, ever so gently, her father detaches, eyes rekindled, face softened.

“I thought that it would be for the best if we didn’t complicate the situation and have half of Hyrule panic that their supposedly-deceased princess is wandering around completely healthy, so you ought to choose a pseudonym.” He says, quiet but warm.

Zelda comes out of the embrace, thinking. “What do you think I should go by?”

Rhoam laughs, eyes twinkling, “That isn’t for me to decide.”

“Oh, okay,” Zelda says. “In that case, how about…”

Her mind empties as tendrils or red creep in from the walls and floor. Threads of red yarn, twisting and turning throughout the air in a fading, silent dance to no tune known in this world. One of them coils around her, calling out to her mind, like a faint call from so, so far away, from beyond.

“…Cethleann?”

Even before the words leave her lips, her world pitches. The water tilts. the rope tying her raft to the dock snaps. The cavern shakes as if caught amidst the most tremendous earthquake, like some apocalyptic cataclysm. And in a moment, in the blink of an eye, Zelda can see. See tall towers and mountains, and students and teachers.

And then it stops. She snaps back to reality, the Triforce symbol on her right hand blazing, blazing like the midday sun were it twice as close. And it hurts just as much. She heaves, lungs vying for purchase of breath, as she becomes painfully aware of her situation. The sky above is a dark grey—clouds are passing over, and drops of rain are spattering against the moat. A moat now spotted with the shallow tops of towers. A moat now spotted with shards of rock, protruding out like mountaintops.

And the dock entrance behind her isn’t there anymore. Without thinking, she uses the Flamestaff, gripped unceasingly in her hand, to push the raft against the rock. As the rain starts pelting, she screams.

“ _FATHER!_ ”

“ _FATHER! Are you in there? Can you hear me? What happened? Please, please, please, answer ME!”_

Her throat constricts as she pounds the rock wall with the Flamestaff, the rain cascading, her breath short, tears mixing with rainwater.

“ _Please,_ please…”

And then, faintly, “Zelda, I’m alright, just…a little bit suck. And a little bit in shock. I’m glad you’re safe. I’m safe. Please, don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. You…you just need to focus on your quest.”

Zelda grips the wall, as if trying to reach her father through anything, “Are—are you going to really be alright? Promise?”

He, painfully, laughs, a short and solemn sound. “Yes, Zelda, I’ll manage. You have your quest. Now, for the both of us, go. Do not worry. Everything will be fine. I promise.”

“O—okay. Okay. Yes. I will. I _will_. I’ll relight the furnaces. I’ll save you. I’ll do anything I must for you and for Hyrule.”

“That’s my Zelda. Now go, explore the world. Rekindle the flames. You can do it. Don’t let this drag you down. Don’t let anything drag you down—you can rise above it and face everything and anything. Stare down your path and walk it proudly. You’re the Princess of Hyrule, but first and foremost—and most importantly—my daughter.”

Zelda, amidst a chorus of rain, pushes her raft away with the Flamestaff, and yells, “I’ll be back as soon as possible, okay?”

And tears streaming down her face, chest shuddering, she crosses Hyrule Castle’s moat.

Once Zelda reaches the other side, headed towards Tabantha, the storm intensifies, rain turning the ground into shallow rivulets of mud. She leaves the raft by the shore and pulls the hood over her head. She’s in Guardian territory, and can’t forget that, even for a moment. She ducks behind a rock, carefully scouting the plain around her from behind.

Along the road to Tabantha, in the distance, standing quiet and solemn in the rain is a fortress wall that extends far off, out of sight. The air is permeated with an earthy stench. The ground is hard and unforgiving yet melding in a tempest with rain and sand and soil and grass. She 0almost steps out, out into the world. But an ambling leg, and then another, clad in shining metal that glitters in the rain, and another, only a mere few feet away, stops her. They’re connected to a mass—a body, a structure, veined in red, with movements as fluid as a serpent.

She stifles a yelp as she ducks out of sight of that single, beady, blue eye. Heart pounding, chest convulsing in a chaotic staccato, all rhythm, rhyme and reason forgone and forsaken.

This had not been a problem fifty years ago. She can faintly remember, like the lost song of a dream from days yonder, the journey she made to Hateno over half a century ago. She’d evaded the Guardians then. Somehow.

The machine stalks closer, Zelda not daring to move. It walks, in that strange and scuttling fashion, past, scanning the area. It just needs to move but a mere few metres away, and then—

A soft static pierces the air.

A quiet humming cleaves it.

The glare of a beam of light shatters it.

She leaps to the side, diving towards it, keeping her head low. Her shoes skid through the mud, splattering her pants. Her hood collapses as the beast fires its beam, exploding the rock she’d been bracing next to only a moment ago, leaving a ragged scar of mineral jutting from the ground.

The guardian scuttles closer, fixing its stare at Zelda.

Breath frantic, mind blank, and heart somersaulting between her throat and her stomach, Zelda thrusts her hand—and the Flamestaff—towards it in a pitiful act of defiance. Nothing could save her, she would not—

The flame shines a bright, crystalline blue.

Her rune flares a beautiful, brilliant gold.

Her mind swims, soul revolving around the staff. Around the world.

Up is down. Left is up. Right is backwards. Forwards is the ground, and then the sky, and then the blackest glimpse of a thorned corridor, leading into the abyss.

Her breath becomes a vortex of liquid gold and solid flame, a tempest unfurling in the blink of an eye. A storm of purity unravelling in the flutter of a heartbeat. A maelstrom of serenity.

Zelda finds herself on her knees, the end of the Flamestaff digging into the ground, still bound and gripped in her hand. Before her lies the guardian, the streaks of malice faded to black, eye dim and unseeing.

An eye that flickers. It flickers blue, like an ancient flame of an older furnace, and warm threads of orange illuminate its body. The eye blinks. The legs twitch, becoming aware of a new world, free from an overbearing hate.

The mark of the Triforce has been branded upon its side, a flame insignia in the centre.

The guardian examines Zelda, a newborn mind cautiously and narrowly aware of the world. She stares back, mouth open, throat raw from crying, screaming, and hyperventilating. Her eyes quiver, the moment incomprehensible.

She pauses, a moment, and speaks, voice like a crumbling pillar.

“May you go and bring peace to Hyrule.” She says, quietly, as the newly reborn guardian quickly runs off, legs clambering in the freakish way that they do. It flares orange and blue, moving further and further away.

It takes another minute of Zelda standing there, in a ditch, for her to notice that the rain has stopped. Only a few drops land here and there, and through a break in the clouds, Hyrule Castle is faintly painted with a golden silhouette of the rising sun.

She swallows—hard and harsh—and tightens her grip on the Flamestaff. And her satchel. One thoughtless step after another, she goes along the road, mind still far off in another palace of thought. Rising and falling from towers, tripping up and down stairs, perhaps even slipping between realms ever so often.

Under the cloud-blanketed sky, the fortress wall, up close, is built out of a bland grey stone, its sole purpose to stand strong as a bastion of protection. To either keep out or keep in. The road, here only a neglected path of dirt that kicks up the whiff of rain with every step, leads to a towering metal gate with a door at the foot.

Zelda inches forward, and askance, knocks. The sound is muted, and dully reverberates throughout the gate, like some sort of death knell.

The silence is punctuated with the futile plunge of sparse raindrops. Then, a section of the door slides away, revealing a pair of Rito eyes, scrutinising what stands beyond. Zelda only gets a glimpse of brown feathers and a golden beak before the metal strikes closed again.

The quiet presses down, collapsing around Zelda.

Not even a word to her.

Nothing but the whisper of agitated voices from across the border.

Until the slot is ripped open again, and another Rito looks through. His eyes sparkle with warmth, and light up with a shallow familiarity, as he breaks into a smile.

“Oh, by the Goddess! I thought you would never arrive!” He says, voice soft yet boisterous. He turns to the side, to address someone else, “Quickly, we must let her in! She must be weary from her journey here—the hardest part of being a diplomat is of course the treacherous voyages throughout Hyrule from one place to another!”

Zelda blinks as the slot slides shut, barely getting time to compose her thoughts before the door heaves ajar, barely wide enough for her to pass through. The brown feathered Rito glares at the blue one, who now that she can see him completely, more resembles the colours of a parrot, and has a plain brown bag slung over his shoulder.

“Kass, she’s Hylian. Are you—”

“Yes, yes,” he says, waving a feathered hand, “Hateno never cares to tell us when they license new diplomats. Besides, she’s come so far, is clearly in shock from such a dangerous venture, and is in serious need of hospitality. Would really be in the hospitality of the Rito to send her back, into a realm ruled by machines where she could so swiftly perish?”

“I—I suppose so,”

The blue Rito—Kass—turns to Zelda and smiles again. “I received your letter, but indignantly _failed_ to reply, you see I simply could not find the time. For that I am infinitely sorry. I was just leaving myself but shall see you safely along the road for the meantime.”

Zelda smiles, searching within for the scraps of etiquette drilled into her when she was still a princess that mattered to a kingdom that still existed.

“Oh, that’s a pity then,” she says, tone eloquent, voice reined, “yet I have arrived, in worse a wear than I had hoped, but arrived nonetheless. It is as you say—I am but a month a diplomat, and even less of experience. I had heard that you were quite the diplomat yourself, so I only thought it wise to ask you for safe passage into Rito territory, lest the worst occur.”

Kass laughs, deftly concealing a sigh of relief, eyes containing the spark of joy. He takes Zelda in arm, and turns to the Rito. “Naturally. Well, we must be going our way to Rito Village now, and we ought not be late.” He smiles and turns on the spot, taking Zelda with him along the road.

The Rito simply nods in acceptance. “Yes…of course. Absolutely. Don’t let me keep you.”

Kass continues talking at Zelda, saying this and that about anything from the weather to her trip to the struggles of their ‘occupation’. She merely nods and replies in her own surficial, royal way.

When they turn a corner, under the shade of several large outcroppings of rock, does his voice drop, and smile fade. “Well, Hylian, who are you, what are you doing here, and why should I have let you past the border?”

Zelda stops mid stride. “Excuse me?”

Kass stares back at her. “I really hope I didn’t bring the wrong kind of person into our territory. The Hylians are known for their fanatic racism against us. All for what they see as the fault of our race and our champion, the Calamity. But you, with your strange staff with its blue flame, and your green-and-blond hair, I’d hardly take you for the average Hylian.”

“Green? You can’t be serious.”

“Ha! How can you say that? It’s almost as if half your head is made of the colour!”

Zelda flinches, before tentatively reaching for her hair clasp in all its inglorious coating of mud and rain. She runs a hand through it as it falls, and certainly, mixed in with her natural shade of blond is an unmistakable pale green. She ties it back up swiftly, fingers shaking every moment.

“Call me…” she pauses, memory alighting to what could only be forty or fifty minutes ago. “Ceth.” She says.

Her eyes flick around the rock that caves over them, searching for something else to talk about. “We’re in Rito territory, right? How big is it, compared to others?”

Kass, noticing everything, doesn’t mention the change, even if he thinks it odd for a Hylian to not know how the land has been carved up over the past one hundred years, and so humours her. “Ever since the technology of the Sheikah towers started to really develop, the people of Hyrule have used the regions set out by the towers as guidelines for their borders. The Rito have one of the largest territories, spanning the Hebra, Tabantha and Ridgeland regions. The Hylians also have three—the Lake, Faron and Hateno regions. The Gerudo, who only have control over the Wasteland region, have become a vassal state of the Hylians to bolster their strength against the Yiga, who claim the territory to the north of Gerudo and the south of ours.”

Zelda nods, still not quite understanding this new Hyrule. “And what about the Zora? Or the Gorons?”

Kass shrugs. “Don’t really know a thing. I’m more of a delegate between the Rito, Hylians, and Gerudo. But I do know this; The Gorons are under the Zora’s protection, and the Zora don’t really like the Hylians—don’t ask me why, I wouldn’t know. Being on the other side of Hyrule from where _I_ specialise, the Sheikah are the ones that work on relations between the Zora and Hylians.”

“This has all happened since the Calamity?”

Kass snorts. “Pretty much. The politics of it all, I think, when everything’s said and done, is rather petty.” He raises an eyebrow. “Also, you still haven’t answered my question as to _why_ you’re here.”

“Oh,” Zelda says lightly, “I just have some…business to attend to.”

“And where might that be in this wonderful territory?”

Before she can reply, a shadow soars overhead—a Rito, ever so briefly, blots out the sun, before it’s gone again.

Kass sighs, and looks at Zelda, grimacing. “Well, wherever you might have been going, you can all but postpone your plans.”

Zelda glances at Kass, dumbfounded. “Why?”

Kass points a feathered finger to the sky. “Word has just been sent to Rito Village that a Hylian diplomat is en route. If you want to keep that ruse up, you’d better head there before they start suspecting foul play.” He turns around, facing the way they’d come, and fastens his satchel. He spreads his wings. “May the Goddess bless you with haste, Ceth. You’ll need it. Especially because you wouldn’t want _me_ of all people to get caught in the firing line—which is exactly what will happen if you don’t get to Rito village before…perchance midnight tonight. They overestimate how fast everyone can travel—trust me.”

In the blink of an eye, he takes flight. Off to somewhere in Hyrule, to do whatever he needed to do.

Leaving Zelda standing on the road, clouds breaking for the morning sun, confused and stranded in a territory she can only barely remember traversing one hundred years ago. Leaving her stranded in the wake of a morning that has left her completely numb with shock.

But the words of her father echo in her mind.

She has to take every step to make sure she can finish this as fast as possible. Even if it means playing at diplomat for another few days.

Even if it means the step she takes, right here and now on the early road to Rito Village, carries her further from her home.

And towards everything but.


	10. The Society of the Secret Script

Even in the morning, the air is boiling as Yunobo makes his determined way to the Isle of Rabac, again, propelling the minecart with the metal pole from yesterday. Below the blackened and scorched rail track, the lava bubbles and whorls in a time-meltingly fashion. It’s strange, peculiar even, Yunobo thinks, how quickly the world can change, one world can change, and yet still the world moves on, like lava under a track, or, perhaps, somewhere else, far, far away, water under a bridge.

The journal is on the floor of the minecart, innocently bound in its plain leather covers, but how unassuming and strange it is. The words of others, inking themselves upon the page by an unseen hand, the feat itself unthinkable.

Yet the impossible had been made possible.

He rubs the Coin of Bounty, on a makeshift necklace of string, subconsciously.

The only thing Yunobo thinks about on his way to the Isle is about how it was a miracle that he woke up, but perhaps that’s being too melodramatic. The worser implication was that he had been damned to reality, this impossible, confusing reality.

_I never should’ve wanted it. The boss was right. It needs protecting for else someone’s going to go insane over it. That someone is me. Me. Me. Me. This is a consequence. But it’s going to be fine, right? I’ll give it back, Bifelgan will take it—and the coin, too. That way, I’ll be able to pretend that all this never happened and I’ll never want to go back to the Shrine and I’ll never want to be like Daruk ever again and I’ll work as hard as I can to the effort of keeping the Gorons afloat under Rudania. It’ll be fine, I’ll be fine, and I’ll stop chasing dreams, reaching out for fleeting moments of independence. It’ll be fine. It. Will. Be. Done. With. And. Fine._

The minecart comes to a rest under the shade of the Isle of Rabac. Yunobo shunts the pole aside in the black sand. The eye at the peak of the Sheikah shrine is glowing blue, staring. Staring. Staring. Staring. The blue glow so cold and oppressive. He strides past, the journal in hand, to the back of the cave, and kicks down at the rocks. It’s loose, but, somehow, less then yesterday. Like some unnatural set of stairs, Yunobo descends to the shrine through the rock, only to come to a room far smaller than it was yesterday.

In the centre, the marble pedestal is nearly taken over by hard formed stone that looks and feels like it has always been there, for ever, since ever, for evermore. The silver sheen that danced brilliantly across the walls is now a faint shimmer, breaking in pitiful waves.

“Wha—” he says, quietly, to himself, stomach dropping. “Bifelgan, are…are you here?”

A heartbeat, but within Yunobo or throughout the room he cannot tell.

Another.

Perhaps the faint laugh of a young girl, over the breaths of a young man.

And then, through the cracks in the solid air, like a mere whisper of yesterday,

“Hail.”

Yunobo loosens, or tenses, he doesn’t care. Shaking, he calls out to the Trader, “What’s happening, wh—why is…everything like this? Are you okay?”

A wheeze, but then a voice as if the light is smiling through the pain, “I have heard the voices, the lost and broken voices of my brethren, and I cannot hold my own presence in the world for much longer. The void calls, and yet it calls familiar. You came to return the journal? Do not bother. This shrine will be consumed by the rock as swiftly as I become one with a dozen other minds. That journal is precious, and best kept safe where you know it is safe—with you it shall be safe. Of the words within, they are a mystery I have no capacity to explain. That coin, however…that dreadful, lonely, powerful coin…I know it too well.”

The light coalesces, and on the steps of the pedestal, in a shimmering outline, is a man, the light to incoherent to make his clothes or face distinct, but he wears a long hat, folded sharply, with a feather just as long sticking out of where the folded brim meets the side of the hat’s body. The figure gestures towards Yunobo’s made necklace, and in a blink of light it changes appearance, the shape of a coin melting away into a crude disc of yellowed stone with a small, red sphere set into the centre.

Bifelgan speaks, stronger now. “Both the coin and the journal are safer with you than they ever would be here. Now that the seal has been broken, I am almost certain that there would be some individuals that would like nothing more than to come here and take them for themselves.”

Yunobo comes closer to Bifelgan, “Are _you_ in danger?”

Bifelgan laughs, a melancholy piercing the sound. “No. I’ll survive. You, however, and the rest of the Gorons, at that, are under a more direct threat.”

“I know that. The Divine Beast Vah Rudania, if it keeps up this rampage for much longer, will be the death of us all. The Boss is concerned about money, but everyone else’s worried about food, so—” Yunobo stops, thinking. “You’re the Trader, right? Could you do something about this?”

Bifelgan’s voice is hardly a whisper. “I wish I could. It would give me a purpose. But, as things stand now, I wouldn’t be much help to anyone, much less in a few moments when I won’t be here anymore.”

“Is there anything I can do? For you? For the Gorons? At all?”

“Keep the journal close. Perhaps the other writers can help you, if only for a moment. Keep the coin safe, and the slate. I’ll always have some strange entanglement with it. As for anything else, perchance fate will be kind in this cruel world of yours. And make sure that no-one, under any circumstance, has possession of either the journal or the coin—I fear the nebulous worst if such does occur, and as for those that might seek it, beware—”

The ground raises, stone closing in. Bifelgan winks out of existence, and Yunobo is left standing at the back of the Isle of Rabac, behind the Sheikah shrine. He searches the ground for a sharp rock of charcoal, sits down, and opens the Journal. The light’s enough. So he writes.

_…Tressa? Can you see this?_ He stares at the page, the markings, for a minute, then five, until,

_Uh, it isn’t Tressa, whoever that is, but who are you? Argh, I need to move somewhere else, otherwise another student’s gonna see me writing this._ The writing stops, and the second sentence is struck out in one thick line.

Yunobo puts the charcoal back on the page. _How could I know to trust you? I shouldn’t tell you my name on a whim. And the same for you—you have no reason to trust me._ But then, almost interjectory, another pen strikes the page.

_Hi. Tressa here. Good to know that I’m not hallucinating, but—I may as well be. It’s cool, and weird, that we can talk to each other like this. Unless you guys_ aren’t _real. Oh! I know! What books are you writing in?_ They stop writing. Yunobo shrugs and puts stone to paper.

_The most unassuming leather notebook you could ever come across._ In the handwriting of the first person, almost at the same time,

_A plain brown notebook that I found with a fable in it. I decided to write my own in it, but you guys have just ruined the integrity of it by writing all your different things in it._

Tressa starts writing again, _Well, if that isn’t a bloomin’ coincidence—I’m in a leather journal, too. So, if we’re gonna be sharing this book, we might as well trust each other as much as we can._

Yunobo, subconsciously, wants to agree with them, as much against his better judgement. _Alright but we’ll need to agree to keep this journal a secret. I need you to promise that. Keep it safe, and don’t let anyone find out about it—let alone touch it. The name’s Yunobo, and I live in Hyrule._

Tressa writes, _Huh. Can’t say that I’ve ever heard of that place. I’m from Orsterra, by the way. What about you, other guy?_

 _Oh, OK. I’m Ashe, and I live in Fódlan_. _I suppose there isn’t much else to say at the moment._

Yunobo smiles at the strange bond being formed. _I haven’t heard of either of those places, but you never know—the world could be such a big place._

 _This seems fun, like our own little secret club!_ Ashe writes.

_Oh! We could come up with a name!_ Tressa says, _But what would it be, for a group, or a society, for us, who communicate solely through writing?_

The page goes unmarked for a while as Yunobo thinks. Running over different names, rubbing his necklace, until he comes up with one.

_What about the Society of the Secret Script? Is that a good name?_

_Sounds great!_

_Absolutely!_ _And we could have a way of signing off to each other, and making promises, if we need to—like…_

Tressa marks an S at the bottom of the page. After a moment, Ashe puts another S, oriented horizontal to Tressa’s vertical, and Yunobo draws one last one, at the angle halfway between the two, leaving something resembling a stylised six-petaled flower at the bottom of the page.

Yunobo writes with the charcoal once more, _I’ve got to go now. I have to do some work. Talk to you guys later?_

_You betcha!_

_Sure!_

And Yunobo walks out of the Isle of Rabac, the world a little bit clearer now. Back to Goron City, where more duties, and time, and maybe, ever so slightly, fate, awaits.


	11. Water under a Bridge

“Sothis,” Link grumbles, face down in a pool of water, having fallen off a pillar of ice, “it’s _not_ funny. There’s a guardian scout after me—I created the pillar and fell off. Seriously, now is not the time.”

“But this is but a test of your abilities! Of course, it is humorous when you stumble!” Sothis says, her voice clear within Link’s mind. He pushes himself up, and quickly activates the Sheikah Slate. In the blink of an eye, two more ice pillars emerge, a makeshift wall between him and the beams of the guardian. “You have weapons, no?”

“But I could die,” Link says bluntly under his breath. “Laughing at it has about as much sense as a boulder rolling down a hill.”

Sothis quiets. “…Even…a…” She drifts off, as if drawn by some far-off whisper. “Never mind. You are correct. There are better things to focus on now. Get up and give it all your courage.” Link draws his traveller’s broadsword, its weight cold in his left hand. With but the flick and a swish of his fingers across the handle of the Slate, one of the pillars shatters, and the guardian patters through, eye fixed on Link. Unflinchingly, he swings his blade and hits the side of its body, causing the guardian to briefly stumble. It rights itself, and with all the mustered might of its small, round, form, charges. With the flicker of a smile, Link feels the brie sensation of a shining pattern of blue light sprout from the back of his left hand.

It’s like falling into an ocean of time, and in the stretch of a second, he spins around the guardian and makes strike after strike against its body, and as electricity sparks across it, its body loosing composition with every fragment passing, Link can hear a faint whisper, a gasp, from the corner of his soul. And perhaps even the momentary, lonely stare of a hundred eyes.

He stands there, the senseless body of the guardian sitting in the thin layer of water, feeling the light fade from his hand. It is almost alienating, the sense of peace.

The quiet, lapping of the water.

The soft moan of the air passing through.

Link shatters the other pillars and uses another underneath a plank of stone to make a ramp. He walks up, making his way to the small platform area, a shrine empty of artefact. It was like this in the other shrines around the Great Plateau—the end of the trial marked by the lonely pedestal. After having done the same three times already, Link boldly steps onto the platform and feels his body lighten, form dissolving into blue light. It was stranger the first time, the brief moment where he had no form, only an incoherent mind scattered across beams of light.

When he lands, the cold air comes as a rushing force, all biting at once. Even through the doublet. The Old Man stands there, unfazed by the temperature, expectantly. Ever so strangely. Everything feels subtly off.

Moved to the side by the breadth of a hair. Ever since he woke up. Ever since he met the Old Man.

“Well done, Link. I suppose congratulations are in order. As a mark of passing these four trials, you can have your very own paragl—”

“Who are you.”

“Excuse me, young man?”

Link stares daggers at the Old Man’s and places a hand on his hip. “You’re the first—and only—person I meet once I’ve woken up. You practically order me to take the Slate. You take advantage of my state after my sleep to activate the tower, all for what? Why?”

The Old Man raises his hands, an attempt to placate. “Only for training, Link. Only for training. To ease your mind and body into this new world. As for who I am, I am no-one special. Merely a guide, waiting for my time to come. For our Hero to have any chance against the Calamity, he must be of sound ability.”

Link softens, letting a smile string itself across his face. “Okay. I’m sorry, sir. I must’ve been mistaken. Still addled from the whole one-hundred years, y’know.”

The Old Man smiles shallowly. “Yes. Well, I did just say you could have it, so here.” He produces a paraglider, a flimsy-looking thing of wood and fabric, from behind his back, and thrusts it towards Link.

Almost instinctively, Link sidesteps in complete bewilderment. And then the light shines from his hand. He swims through the moment, stepping out on the other side, unfazed. The Old Man pauses, and with a look of quiet satisfaction, properly hands Link the paraglider.

“My apologies, Link.” He stands, and wordless points to a far-off path, quite possibly near the base of the plateau. A light snowfall develops, and a snowflake gently alights on the end of Link’s nose. “Over there is the road that leads to Kakariko Village, of the Sheikah. There you will be able to find more information on how you can defeat the Calamity, once and for all.”

Link follows the Old Man’s finger, and takes out the Slate, using its scope function to see it with clarity. “Thanks,” he says quietly, before placing the Slate back on his hip, turning to where the Old Man isn’t.

Only the snow, falling through the air, tumbling down and down and down, is there. The air flickers, but maybe that is just a trick of the light. The air gets colder. The world feels narrower. Link, not wanting to stay for a moment more, takes the paraglider, tentatively holds it above his head, and jumps off, letting himself be carried by the air. It’s petrifying, soaring over the river that flows through the Great Plateau, its icy rapids braiding under the surface. From the back of his memory, his mind whispers that he once heard it be called ‘The River of the Dead’.

A chilling name for a chilling river.

He alights on its far bank, and swiftly makes his way up a hill, until green grass and brown earth are beneath his feet. He moves past a couple trees in strides, and recognises the outcropping of rock in front, below him. He’s atop the Shrine of Resurrection. He hops down, and stands on the ledge, overlooking the rest of the plateau and all of Hyrule. And then, breathless, hidden in the folds of the wind, comes a voice.

“Link,”

Hardly taken by surprise at this ancient voice, he responds almost apathetically. “What.”

“It was not safe to talk to you until now, boy. My name is Maz Koshia, and I am the last of my kind.”

“What?”

The voice comes smoothly. “I am the last surviving Monk of Hylia. My brethren have all been destroyed, and yet I sense their essence on you. Fear not; I do not accuse you. It happened while you slept, early in your slumber. I have watched you for the past one hundred years, and it would serve you well to stay vigilant. Trust is something you would be wise to not give or take lightly. You must strive to work against the evil that machinates in this land. I fear Calamity Ganon’s rise. I fear what the disappearance of my kin could mean for this land.”

“I suppose I shouldn’t trust you, then?”

Maz Koshia’s voice comes as a laugh. “I suppose. You have no reason to trust me. Me or the one that lives within you.”

It is like the snapping of a string, as the voice departs, done with its duty. Perturbed, but not awfully shaken, Link paraglides down to the plain of the plateau, and warps up to the top of the Sheikah Tower. The sensation is growing on him, now. It doesn’t feel so foreign.

Up on the tower, the wind blows harder.

“Sothis,” Link says, softly, “remind me to never blindly trust strange old men ever again.”

“Duly noted,” She says. “But you heard the Monk. It would seem unwise to trust me, too. I know I can hardly trust myself.”

Link jumps off the edge of the tower and takes out the paraglider. He soars over the Plateau’s wall. “Do you happen to know the way to Kakariko?”

Sothis chuckles. “Perhaps. We’ll need to see. I do not yet know how much I know.”

Link huffs. “I’ll also need to get a horse. Probably.”

And Sothis just laughs, her heart warm after being so cold.

* * *

The Riverlands are creeping up ahead. The border river, separating the Sunlands from the Riverlands, flows wide and quiet. Primrose, steps behind the rest of her…acquaintances, shields her eyes as she marks the sun’s position. Hardly noon. More like ten.

With a scuffed step, feeling the thinning sand run over her feet, she bites her lip, drowned in thought. She does not _have_ to be with the others, but it does afford extra protection from the monsters that infest the wilderness. Cyrus, a scholar from Atlasdam, had explained to her their rotation system—each battle, four of them fight, two rest. Ophilia, from the Flamesgrace Cathedral, had chimed in and said it prevented people from becoming too exhausted.

Overwhelming, it had been. H’aanit. Ophelia. Cyrus. Tressa. Olberic. Five people with such different goals, each dependent on the others. In less than a month, they’d gotten used to each other. How could she fit in to such a unique band, and what they already had together?

She looks at her feet. At her flimsy dancer’s sandals. She’d need new clothes, her attire hardly becoming of a traveller. “I shouldn’t’ve dragged these people into my petty revenge quest.” She says, to herself and herself alone. Maybe the women from her vision could keep her company. They would be the sort of people to be there for her.

_Stop_. _You’re judging them on such a vague first impression, Primrose. You—I can’t afford to be imprudent._ She tells herself. It isn’t until she climbs out of the warren that her thoughts have become that she realises Ophelia had drifted back.

“—so glum? Come on, we could get to know each other more.”

“Oh!” Primrose says, blinking, eyes big and mouth open. “I’m sorry, Sister. I was thinking. Yes, we should get to know each other more.” She says absentmindedly.

Ophelia’s smile manages to be brighter than the sun. “Where did you grow up, Prim?”

Primrose winces at the nickname, and the haste. No time for in-betweens, this cleric. “Oh, um, Noblecourt, Sister. I was born and raised there.”

“Such a long way from the Sunlands!”

“Yes, ah, I suppose so.”

“I’ve heard that the city is divided, between rich and poor. If you don’t mind me asking, which side did you grow up in?”

Primrose stares straight ahead, determined to not let Ophelia see the bob in her throat. “Ah, um, the lower side, outside the walls of the city proper,” she lied. She hugs herself, before tucking a non-existent strand of hair behind her ear. She stammers, “So, uh, Sister, I hope you don’t mind me asking a strange question, but—”

“Oh, I’m sure I won’t mind.”

“Ok, so, um,” Primose starts, voice dropping to a hush, “in your faith, are there any stories about people having visions?”

Ophelia’s smile flattens. Her brow creases. “None that I know of. Are you asking for any particular reason?”

“No, no. That’s alright.” A lost cause, then. One more question, perhaps, but that would be better off— “What about glimpses to the other side of the world, or even into another world?”

Ophelia shoots Primrose a suspicious glare, taken aback. “You’re talking about seeing what should not be seen. Such visions are the workings of the gods—only they can walk between worlds. They came from the heavens, after all.”

“The gods are from another world?”

“As is the Fallen One. As does Aelfric’s Sacred Flame.” She clasps Primrose’s hand, blue eyes shimmering like the water beneath them. “I’m not sure I want to continue this conversation. Please, have peace, Primrose. I understand that you have no reason to be amicable to me, but do not concern yourself with matters like this—the world is full of mysteries.”

She squeezes her hand, lightly. And then walks away. Primrose follows the group, wordlessly. She exchanges a weak smile with Tressa, then H’aanit, her snow leopard Linde at her side. Perhaps she should let go, just a bit. Help these people, before herself.

Olberic sits down, Cyrus at his side, on a tree stump for a break. Trees provide cool shade, and the sound of rivers flowing is calming. It’s a different kind of place from Sunshade, from the manse in Noblecourt.

_Only they can walk between worlds._

Ophelia’s words rattle back and forth in her head, but as Primrose walks to the group, sits down between Ophilia and Tressa, she breathes deep and slow, puts a smile on her face, and has a go at perhaps making some friends, while she has the time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone (or anyone), LyteWryte here! I'm sorry for the hiatus, but please bear with for just a while longer! I'll try to get another chapter out soon, but in a few weeks' time I should be getting at least a few more chapters out, more than one a month (hopefully--I'm not sure how busy I'll get yet). I hope everyone's liking the story so far. I suppose that's all for now--have a good day and happy reading!


	12. The Weight of the World

The sand is already proving annoying, and that is just the start of Adrian’s problems. Riju had apparently “realised” that getting him out of the Palace through Gerudo Town would be harder than simply leaving through the back of the throne room. Especially since both of them had slept in. Even more because Riju had swiftly discovered that getting people out of sand-seal leashes is harder than getting them _in_.

And so, of course, Riju had needed ensure that her bedroom door was locked, until she was able to cause a distraction enough for Adrian to give himself a disastrous headache by using his Rune on all the guards. All before they took their weapons, their shields, RIju’s sand seal Patricia, themselves, and threw it all out the back of the throne room.

_But_ , Adrian had _not_ had time to change into anything other than the armour he’d been wearing since last midnight.

So, he and Riju had started out traveling east-southeast of Gerudo Town, on foot, with very little provisions in terms of food and water, the air between them thick with the imminent hint of potential assassination.

And _then_ the sandstorm had come.

Hand shielding his eyes, Adrian takes one step before another in the hopeless hope of travelling in a straight line. Riju reaches out, grasping for his forearm.

Her anchor is short-lived as Adrian steps into a small stream of water, almost unaware of her grip on his arm, while his leg sinks knee-deep into the water.

It takes a short moment, well, more than a few, for him to try and understand what exactly is happening. He blinks. Again.

“What.”

“—er.” Riju adds unhelpfully. Adrian doesn’t even need to look at her to _feel_ the grin devilishly spreading across her face.

“No, I mean what in Hylia’s name is a stream doing in the Gerudo desert.”

Riju snorts. “You should get out more. According to the records, over the past one hundred years rivers have been creeping their way up through Gerudo territory. Inexplicably, might I add. At this point, we’ve simply grown accustomed. She wades into the water, unflinchingly coming out on the other side.

“Besides, it’s not too bad. And the Thunder Helm is _not_ going to find itself.” She takes a few steps away from the bank, leaving Adrian standing in the water, mouth hanging open. “Well,” Riju says, hand on hip, “are you coming or not?”

Bedrenched, Adrian follows after her. “I might as well. The Yiga Clan is probably not going to be too happy with me if I go back, or if they randomly find me in the middle of the desert.”

 _And with you…_ he stops the thought right there, not ready to face his…obligation head-on, _still you,_ The back of his mind, in a tiny, haunting voice, adds.

Adrian clenches his teeth. The windcleaver on his back is a ghostly cold. He’s almost thankful that an ear-piercing, inhuman cry rattles the air. His breath catches in his throat as he turns to see, in the far distance, heavily obscured by the sandstorm, the iridescent feet of Vah Naboris, a crackling ball of lightning far above—between the humps. Next to Riju, Patricia bristles with uncertainty, perhaps even trepidation.

“Let’s go the _complete_ opposite direction.”

“I never thought I’d be agreeing with a Yiga.” Riju mutters. She takes stride after stride, earnest in leaving the Divine Beast far behind them.

It takes an age of walking in a silence like death for them to emerge from the sandstorm, and Riju is hardly delighted.

“You know, I’d say that we’re hardly any closer to finding the Thunder Helm. It would give me more of a case to kill you for wasting my time, and I could get back to Gerudo Town, where what I do actually matters, too.” She smirks. “Unless you took the opportunity to kill me first. It would neatly explain why you went out of your way to drag me out to get lost in the middle of nowhere. I applaud you, Adrian.”

He stops, his next step hovering over the ground. “What makes you say that?”

Riju raises an eyebrow. “I can hardly see what you gain from helping me find the Thunder Helm. Apart from betraying literally everyone you’ve ever kn—”

“—It wouldn’t be everyone.”

“Really? Who from the Yiga Clan could possibly _not_ be betrayed by you being here?”

“Someone I’d rather not remember.”

“Oh? Who would that be? A mentor? A friend? A girlfriend, or even a boy—” She stops, eyes wide. It… _couldn’t_ be—that brush on the edge of her mind, sparking the Rune of Nabooru ever so slightly.

Could it?

From the corner of her eye, she can see Adrian open his mouth—she holds a finger up, ordering his silence.

“I wouldn’t dare to hope, but you might not have been lying, after all.” She whispers, focused solely on the sensation. It strengthens. Her hand stings, and for a moment, Riju can hear, and feel, the rushing of sand at incredible speeds. Yet it feels muted, shallow, somehow.

The ground rumbles a hair’s breadth, and it does not stop. The disruption grows, to the point where at her side, Adrian kneels to the ground, touching two fingers to the sand as if he’s taking the pulse of the earth itself. Patricia snarls.

His gaze shoots up, fixed on the nearby, small plateau of stone jutting out of the ground. “We need to run, there—” he points to the plateau “—now.”

“Why?”

“Molduga.”

At the word, Riju feels another sting through the rune. “Not just a Molduga. It has the Thunder Helm.” With that, she runs, feet born for the desert effortlessly sprinting across the sand, Patricia gliding through the sand at her side. Adrian, brow scrunched, runs after her.

“ _What?_ ” He says, calling ahead, his voice almost lost in the wind behind Riju. “What do you mean, ‘It has the Thunder Helm’?”

Riju turns back to him and taps the still-glowing back of her hand, “What do you _think_?” she hisses. Swiftly, she bounds up the stone and looks out across the desert.

Adrian pinches the bridge of his nose, and follows her up. “Ready your scimitar. If a Molduga has the Thunder Helm, it won’t give it up willingly. For the moment, I need to focus.” He pauses. “Where’s it coming from?”

Riju points roughly towards the south. “It’s coming closer to us,” she adds.

“Good.” Adrian says. He outstretches his left arm, palm out to the desert, as a blue circle comes to life on the back of his hand. With his eyes closed, he points two fingers, and hardly a moment later the sand where he pointed explodes in a burst of blue light.

“Excuse me?” Riju says, her tone indignant. “When were you going to tell me that you had _two_ Runes?”

“When it was necessary. Besides, the Lesser Rune of Force is hardly an admirable power, only useful in a small variety of circumstances. Molduga hunting just happens to be one of them.”

Sure enough, after less than ten seconds, the submerged Molduga reaches the point of explosion, and leaps into the air, jaws snapping shut on nothing. Its bone-white hide and underbelly shine in the sun. Patricia lets loose a sound of bewilderment at the sight, her black fur and pink ribbon quivering.

“That’s…big.” Adrian whispers. “Bigger than your usual Molduga, for sure.”

But Riju can’t hear him. The Thunder Helm’s presence creeps in on her mind in a jagged way. “It’s definitely there.” She says. “Less talk more action.”

A good sentiment, she realises, with the Molduga having reburied itself.

Adrian does not hesitate in setting off another explosion, the Molduga lurching into the air with greed. In that moment, he directs another blast between the creature’s jaws. Roaring, the beast crashes to the sand, where the pair race at it, blades ready.

Adrian claws his right hand, the yellow flare that sprouts there giving them but a mere second more, with the sheer size of the creature. The clang of metal on hide rings out. Riju leaps back as the Molduga writhes, aching to dive back into the sand.

Adrian races back to the base of the stone, staring wide-eyed at Riju who stays still, a hand resting on Patricia. The Molduga cries again, digging into the ground.

“This doesn’t feel right.” Riju says quietly. “My Rune…the Helm…it’s painful. I…feel an...anguish from the Molduga.” Suddenly—a glint, from the Molduga’s head, as it rampages through the sand. “There—on its head, you see?”

“I see it. You’re sure that’s the Helm?”

“Yeah. But…we have to at least dislodge it. I don’t know about outright killing the Molduga, though.”

“It’s a _monster_ , you do realise that?” Adrian says, glaring at Riju. “Why would you be opposed to _killing_ it?”

“Because…It’s just as alive as you and me. It’s in pain—because of the Helm. We free it from the Helm, we get the Helm, everyone wins.”

“Okay, so, all efforts on…‘freeing it from the Helm’?”

Riju groans. “We won’t get anywhere if we keep on interrogating every point I make like this. Please, can we just do this already?”

Adrian sighs. “Alright. Fine. Let’s go. I’ll aim, keep it still, and you can try and get the Thunder Helm back.”

Riju slides down the stone while Adrian readies his Rune, aiming at the sand. He sends a blast, the sand spraying high into the sky. The Molduga, screeching, leaps into the air. As it falls, Adrian sends another burst to the Molduga’s forehead, using all his effort to keep it concentrated. Riju, in her agile way, darts about its head, her scimitar poised for impromptu surgery.

She comes to the other side of its head, where, most definitely, the Thunder Helm juts out of its forehead, wedged—trapped—between crystallised sand and salt and its own horns. Riju moves to its side and digs the scimitar in next to the Helm. She wedges its point in a miniscule gap under the Helm, and is close enough now to realise that only a third of the helmet is visible—the rest crusted under a heap of sand.

The Molduga freezes, blinking as if caught in the terror of being bound in chains. In between frantically trying to dig out her heirloom, her mind fleets to last night—the same incapability of movement she’d experienced.

_It’s the Thunder Helm, Riju. You have_ never _sympathised with a Molduga before. Then again, you’ve never met one before but that’s beside the point._ But even then, Riju thinks as she looks to Patricia, what separates a Molduga from any other creature?

“Riju, I can’t hold it much longer!” Adrian yells. “You better get that thing out as soon as possible!”

“I’m trying _really_ hard here!” She shoots back. She digs the scimitar deeper, working around to the covered part of the Helm. _I’m going to need to sharpen this later._ She thinks begrudgingly. _No,_ she reminds herself, _It’s for the Thunder Helm. I’ll do anything for the Thunder Helm._ She works harder, faster. The sand cracks, the Helm’s golden glow almost taunting her, begging her, to set it free. Patricia yelps and barks, anxiously distracting the Molduga for even the briefest of moments.

With a flare of her rune, she reaches out for the Helm, calling it home.

With a sharp yell, Adrian cries out in pain, and the Molduga screeches. Patricia reels back, putting herself between Riju and the creature. It lurches, and breaches, knocking Riju back onto the sand. The hunk of mineral—the Helm, under such force, breaks away, landing in the sand in front of her.

Adrian, grimacing, alternately clutching his head and his hand, makes his way to Riju, and the Molduga lands next to them, a cloud of sand billowing out from under it. Running a hand through his platinum hair, clenching his jaw, Adrian grips his windcleaver uncertainly.

“Is it going to fight us?”

“I don’t think so. Look,” she gestures to its eyes, which are softer now, with less anguish. “It’s thanking us.”

“Now that’s just ridiculous, how could you possibly—”

“—you’re welcome, Ghis.” Riju says. She runs a hand across its jaw. “Go, please, and be safe.”

Adrian stops, his face contorting into more and more confused expressions. Riju turns to him. “If you’re patient enough, and quiet enough, you can get the gist of what they want.” She smiles at Patricia, patting the sand seal on the head. “And, this time it’s compounded by, and almost through, the Helm. But still, you should try paying more attention sometimes—simply exist in a moment, you know?”

“That doesn’t explain how you learnt its name”

“His name.” Riju stares at the helmet in her hand. “Is Ghisarma. It’s…residual, I suppose. Through the Helm. He wore it, it brought him pain, I have it, I feel what he felt, while bearing it.”

Adrian rolls his eyes. “I’m just going to pretend that I understood all of that completely. Anything else you _know_ from the Helm?”

Without warning, Ghisarma turns from them and burrows deep into the sand, going anywhere.

"It was dark. Cold. Red. Pain." Riju murmurs, watching the Molduga race away, running her thumb across the little blue gems inset in the Helm—the eyes of a stylised Vah Naboris.

Adrian wets his lips. It has, in fact, been quite a lot and quite strange ever since he’d decided to find the Thunder Helm with Riju. He’s not quite sure what to do now, now that their mission is done. “Hey, should we get back to Gerudo Town, now that, you know, we’ve found the Thunder He—"

“ _No.”_ Riju’s voice comes hoarse and desperate. Adrian turns to her, eyes wide at the sight before him. The sand and salt had fallen away, no doubt by Riju’s efforts to restore the Thunder Helm, but that is just the problem.

“H..How?” He’s honestly shocked.

“How could Kogha have split the Thunder Helm?”

Riju, holding but a sharply and cleanly cut third of the mask, attached to what is only a semicircle of the gold diadem, looks up at him with a soul-shattered stare. Only two of Naboris' six eyes stare at him. It can't even be _worn_. “We _must_ go on. This can’t be. We have to find the rest of the Thunder Helm—goddess, it might not even _be_ in the desert, and, and, we can’t—let a moment go by when we aren't searching. We _need_ to—to...” She heaves into a sob, choked by her own words and the world crashing around her.

Adrian crouches down and grips her hands. “I...I know. And you...no _we_ will. I _promise_ you. _We_ will.” Goddess, every word he says feels like it’d dripped in a thousand lies, but he doesn’t know how much of it is truth, how much isn’t, and how much is him trying to console a twelve-year-old girl with the weight of the world on her shoulders.

“But first,” he adds, “we need to find a way out of this bloody desert.”

Riju, tears breaking down her face, laughs hollowly. She hugs Patricia, who had quietly moved in beside her, reaching her hands deep into the sand seal's fur.

“That we do, Adrian. That we do.”

* * *

Edelgard winces as the sun emerges from behind a cloud. She hurries more with ever step she takes past the dormitory, making her determined way to the Professor’s quarters. Jaw set, she virtually ignores every “Your Highness” on the way.

Without thinking, she raps on the Professor’s door, the wood lightly scraping her knuckles with the force. Practically on the threshold, the fiddles with her cape—the red fabric of which looks more like pink (much to her annoyance) in the sunlight—and grinds her booted heel into the stone.

Without delay, Byleth opens the door, his blue hair unkempt but hardly a problem. With that unflinching gaze and flat smile, he seems hardly perturbed by how close Edelgard is standing to him.

“Edelgard. What brings you here on this fine day? Are you here to deliver an assignment—” his eyes flick down, and upon seeing nothing of the sort on her person, “—or something else?” He blinks. “Come in.”

He leaves the door open while he goes to sit back at his desk.

Edelgard hesitantly enters and is immediately taken aback by the utter _neatness_ of everything. And the cramped nature inherent in the room.

“First, Edelgard,” Byleth says. “What day is it today?”

“Oh, uh, Day Twenty-Nine of the Horsebow Moon, Imperial Year 1180. Why?”

“No, Edelgard, what _day_ is it?”

“Oh. Sorry Professor—it’s Monday.”

“And are there classes today?”

“No.”

“So, please be quick, otherwise I’ll run late for my tea party with Professor Jeritza.” The corners of his mouth perk up as he says the name. “We’re both rather punctual people, I hope you mind.”

“Of course, Professor.” Edelgard says. _What,_ she thinks.

“Then please, do not hesitate.” He gestures for her to sit on his bed. He starts filling out paperwork on his desk—dipping his quill into an inkwell, the sunlight streaming in painting his hair a lighter shade of blue.

“Ok, so, I’m telling you this because, well, you might be the best person to talk to.”

“Go on,” Byleth says, continuing to write.

“What do you know about other worlds?”

“As in other continents, or completely different realms?”

“Either. For the moment. I’m not entirely sure.” Edelgard says.

“And what about them?”

“Is it possible to…communicate—mentally, I mean—with other people over such vast distances?”

“Perhaps. The Goddess grants all sorts of gifts. As for talking to people in your head, that is not impossible, either.”

“So, what you’re saying is that one could theoretically talk to someone across worlds, if the…Goddess wills it?”

“I am not denying that it could be a possibility. The Goddess herself is said to come from a place beyond the Heavens.”

Edelgard’s mind is racing, her heartbeat accelerating. “But I’m ordinary! What could the Goddess ever want with me?”

“One could say that you are not ordinary. You are the Princess of the Adrestian Empire. You bear the Crest of Seiros.”

“But I _am_ ordinary, I want people to see me as ordinary.”

“Would you say that that extends to yourself? Do you want to be ordinary?”

Edelgard pauses, her heart and mind and breath sharply disagreeing on as to what to say. “I—I don’t know. Thank you, Professor. I have…much to think about, now. I will not take up any more of your time. Feel free to go to your…tea party, as you said. I’ll take my leave.” She launches herself off the bed, and strides for the door.

“Have a good day, Edelgard.” Byleth says, looking up at her from his desk. “Oh and,” She turns on the spot, violet eyes caught wide and off-guard, “Edelgard, keep in mind that sometimes strange things happen to us. They have happened to me doubtless times. It is something I can hardly begin to describe, a hunch perhaps, but I understand that I have become strange all the more. We can be made ordinary by the strange, or make the strange ordinary, or be perfectly and wonderfully strange and ordinary at the same time, or anywhere in between. As the church says, what happens in our lives is a blessing from the Goddess, whether we see how or not. While I do not completely subscribe to their beliefs, I share that sentiment at least.” He smiles, faintly.

“Thank you, again, Professor, for your…advice.”

The sun does not feel as harsh and blinding when she steps outside.

In fact, the world seems just that bit clearer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! LyteWryte here! If you're reading this, thank you sooooooooo much for sticking through this hiatus. Only about a week to go, hopefully, and then it should be over and y'all will be getting *many* more chapters! If you're reading this for the first time, hello! I hope you're enjoying the fic, and thank you for deciding to check it out! I hope you enjoy today's chapter, and as always, have a good day and happy reading! (new chapter hopefully soon-ish?)


	13. Now is Apparently an Inconvenient Time

The _Royal Princess Mipha_ Hospital has always seemed too overbearing—too pristine, too pale, too dreamlike, too much—to Sidon, and even more so now. With a purposeful stride, he walks down a third-floor corridor that, realistically, could be anywhere in the building. It all just looks too much the same.

He passes two nurses, the pair engaged in an intense discussion over a notebook, and he gives them the briefest smile before hurrying past, keeping his satchel tight to his body. He cannot _stand_ to be in the building. Even with all its mother-of-pearl furnishings and carefully curtained corridors and wide water-view windows, for Sidon it stands as a monument of expectation.

And the funniest thing is that _she_ would not even approve of how he has been treated—is being treated—for the past one hundred years. At least, that is what Sidon understands from fragments of memories and the twisted remembrances of his people, with how little left of his sister there is to remember.

_Stop it,_ he tells himself. It is pointless, worthless, benign, and overall unproductive to dwell on things like that. He…ought to…follow his duty.

Wherever that may lead him.

Sidon ducks under the archway leading to what is most definitely the least-used stairwell in the entire building. The spiral staircase is cramped; the aquamarine floor caked in dust, the air dry and the light dim, but it gets him where he needs—no, wants, in fact—to go.

It spirals on and down the spine of the hospital, almost hypnotically (and Sidon is in all honesty completely unsure of why there have not been more accidents on these stairs), until, past a disused storeroom on the lowest floor, Sidon steps out into daylight.

The garden is hideously small. Barely five square metres of grass and flowers sprawl out, and the only tree is a red, coral-like willow that has all but been consumed by the cliff face that encircles the grotto. All in all, it exists between the rock and a hard place—squeezed between the cliff and the hospital.

It is, frankly, the briefest moment of tranquillity. A quiet space. Sidon sits down, under the tree—legs crossed—and closes his eyes.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

His thoughts dissolve. Not entirely though—that would be outright impossible. But just enough to forget that he is here, at this hospital (which, in fact, he understands he has some role in running), and ever so slightly forget about the burden of that expectation.

Of course, at that moment, an ear-splitting mess of metal clattering and wind howling, had to erupt from just inside the doorway. It had better not be any strange Zora children after some peculiar, adventurous thrill inside a medical centre. The clattering continues and Sidon gets up from under the tree, a frown emerging, and crosses the garden in one stride (not that it is very hard at all, although Sidon reckons that now is not really the time for such _humorous_ musings).

“Alright, you’ve had your fun—scram!” He says, shoving the storage room door open with his shoulder. “And I better not see any of you here agai—”

The room is devoid of children, Zora or otherwise. Old, dusty shelves of useless boxes and outdated equipment have been shoved aside by the most pretentious stone pedestal, Sidon thinks, in the whole entire world. Upon it, is a glass phial and a long, thin, bone-white slate.

“Oh, seriously? I come to make a special, once-in-a- _lifetime_ experience and the best I get is an unwelcome welcome from a disgruntled prince?”

Sidon’s eyes grow wide. He picks up a rudimentary scalpel from the floor, threateningly waving it about in the air, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

“Either I’m insane, or I just heard a voice in my head. Honestly? With how the past two days have been, I don’t really want to make a solid guess at all,” He says. “I don’t suppose…you—whoever, whatever, you are—would care to enlighten me?”

“ _Ha!_ How funny! I assure you that you are not insane. As far as I can tell. Well, I’ll keep this as brief as it needs to be—the name’s D, I don’t have much time before I’m, well, consumed into a void of souls—boy, you do _not_ want to know about that, and before you decide to get all familiar and hospitable, that’s all I know ‘bout myself, K?”

“Look, D, is it? I don’t _want_ to listen to anything you have to say—I already have enough of that to deal with in my daily life so I do _not_ need hallucinatory people telling me what to do.”

“Woah, kid. You’ve got spunk. That’s for sure.”

“ _I’ve_ got spunk? _You’ve_ got spunk barging into my hospital uninvited!”

“O I do _not_ want to get into this with how little time we have left. Please, _humour_ me. Honestly? I’m only here because our…essences…are similar. Somehow—don’t ask me how because I wouldn’t know. Second of all? I _know_ you have some heart’s desires, right? I bet you reaaaly want those, don’t you? You do know you’re completely capable of doing them, right?”

“Don’t lecture me about what I do and don’t want!”

“Uh, thirdly, don’t interrupt me! Fourthly—take the phial.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so. Also, because it’d help me turn into cosmic dust more slowly than if someone like me has it. But that’s beside the point.

“Fifth! Take the slate. You have it, keep it safe, et cetera, et cetera, something important I think yada yada yada. Y’know?”

“No, I don’t. Also, why should I listen to _anything_ you say?”

“Uh, what did I say about interrupting me?”

“Don’t do it?”

“Wonderful! People like you _do_ learn!”

Completely on edge and utterly fed up with the entire situation, Sidon walks up to the pedestal, pouting, and takes the phial. “I’m only doing this for you to stop talking to me.”

“Wonderful! Wait, what? Oh, I’ll give it to you straight then—you’re a pushover, you know? You can completely do whatever you want to do in full capacity, but you just let everyone else in your family and your life walk right over you? How do I know? You just did so right here and right now!”

“Do you _know_ the days I’ve had? I’m a walking heap of exhaustion—”

“And pent-up annoyance.”

Sidon does not acknowledge the comment. “and all I wanted was for five minutes— _just five minutes_ —of peace and quiet, but you went ahead and ruined it!” He takes the slate and shoves it in his satchel. “And that was to get you out of my life and out of my hospital!”

“Ohoho! You know what? I know _exactly_ what to do. That phial? With your abilities it can conjure any—and I mean _any_ , from miraculous cures to the deadliest of poisons—liquid of your heart’s desire. But! If you do not see through the decisions that you know will ob _jectively_ make the world a better place, anything you bring into existence with that phial will go horribly, _horribly_ , wrong!”

“You can’t do that! Why would you do that? That’s blackmail! You’ll be in serious trouble, sir, if you blackmail a Zora Prince!”

“Oh?” D crooned, “Well that’s too bad then; I’ve already done it! Besides, prince what would this encourage but charity?”

Sidon gasps. “Wait, what do you mean?! What do I do?”

“Take a look at the relic yourself,” D says. “you see that grey liquid, forming in the teeniest, _tiniest_ , droplets at the bottom? Like I said, you would _not_ want to know what happens when that fills up. As for what to do, well, I can see out of the corners of your mind—you want peace, do you not? You want peace across Hyrule, with the Hylians, do you not? You want to make your people understand that you are not Mipha? Oh—what’s this?” His voice sounds drenched in a smile. “Maybe you already know exactly what to do. Maybe you—”

The pedestal vanishes. Space implodes around it, sucking in the light and air and dust like a cosmic whirlpool. Just as quickly as it came, Sidon is left standing in the middle of a perfectly dusty and old storeroom. The phial in his hand, and the slate in his bag, are the only things that give the past two minutes any credence in reality.

Silently, Sidon shuts the storeroom door—locking it, too—and ascends the stairwell. Each beat of his footsteps is rhythmic and ordered and calming. As he navigates the corridors and stairwells of the Zora hospital, one thing becomes increasingly clearer.

It is a challenge. From D. From that spirit, ghost, god, whatever. Sidon knows that he has been challenged to choose who he becomes; whether or not he listens to the Zoran dream of the past or looks forward to the terrifyingly uncertain future with hope.

He leaves the _RPM_ Hospital through its grand entryway, past the colossal statue of Mipha that watches over the foyer, and crosses the bridge to the main concourse of Zora’s Domain without so much as a glance at anyone else.

He passes the statue of Mipha in the city square. It is the only thing he ever stops to look at. On any other day, the eyes looking down on him would say ‘ _I challenge you to be better than I. To be there for our people even more than I was_. _’_

Now, the stone speaks different. Mipha raises another kind of thought.

_‘What was I like? What are you like? What do_ you, _Sidon, think is best for you, me, and everyone?’_

Questions that Sidon believe would take the most impossible span of time to answer.

Before long he finds himself in his private quarters, packing his satchel for what could be a rather long journey.

“Where, exactly, do you think you’re going, Sidon?” King Dorephan says, towering over his son in the throne room.

“Kakariko village, father.” Sidon says unwaveringly. “To pursue diplomacy with the Hylians through the Sheikah.” He raises his chin. Keeps his eyes fixed on his father.

“You shall do no such thing,” Dorephan says, “for the Hylians are our enemy and I, for one, do not want to do _anything_ that could call forth a war.”

Sidon groans. “You’re being ridiculous, father. That will never happen. Not under your rule.” _Not under my watch_ , he thinks. He reaches to his back, gripping the Lightscale Trident. The pain is an assurance that this—all this—is real. That he can do this. “You should know”—the slightest waver in his voice, but Sidon is not ready to crack yet— “that I do not, in fact”—he draws the trident—“have the Rune of Ruto.”

Dorephan sighs, not amused. “Sidon, stop with this nonsense, honestly!”

“Would you know, that whenever I hold this trident the only thing that I feel is pain? A pain the bites and digs and claws with a whole essence of… _wrongness_?” He clamps his jaw tight, emphasising the point. “One that fights against every essence of my being?” He shoves it back over his shoulder, the clang of metal as it collides with the Ceremonial Trident strapped there heavy on his ears. “And, father, you should know that I am _not_ my sister. I never have been. I’m going to do what I know will make my—our—future.”

Sidon knows that the phial is draining as he speaks. It must be. There is no other way. All it needs now is one step, and then another.

He takes those steps.

Takes them away from his father. Away from the throne room.

“Sidon, wait, please! You do not know what you’re getting yourself into! Please, you cannot know what it has been like for me! I’ve already lost one child, I don’t want to—”

But Sidon does not hear his father. He opens his satchel, only to see that cursed water pooling, surely more than when D had forced it upon him. He does not see that, either. Only the chance—the decision—to take his own stride in the world.

He dives off the city, plunging into the cold, cold Zora River below.

* * *

Paya wipes the back of her hand across her forehead, voraciously eyeing the pile of cake in the middle of her desk on the far side of the room.

The back room of Kakariko’s blacksmith is, generally, dark. That’s not to say that windows scattered around the roof rim do not let in shards of light, but the room is dark anyway, darker with the metal walls. She can faintly here the sound of tools working the farms, of people milling about and chatting, coming from outside, as well as the pealing and squeaking of farm animals.

As for the room, only those willing to pay up and out for tailor-made metalwork venture back here—not for the labour, Paya knows, but the cake that she needs to fuel such tailoring.

The sphere of metal hovering between her hands bubbles and ripples in the air, its silver surface coated red by the light of her rune. Paya glances at her handiwork, and, mildly satisfied, lets it come to a misshapen rest in her palm.

With childlike glee, she all but leaps to the other side of the workroom to scarf down a slice, the icing smearing her cheek as she does so. She reaches for a second slice, but the door leading to the rest of the smithy opens violently. 

“I was told that I could find the best, most interesting, kind of tailor-made accessories in all Necluda here.” A man, a Hylian, says impatiently. Paya spins around. The man is boring, in a pragmatic and melodramatic sense that fits his over-the-top dress sense.

A merchant. Ugh, some of the Merchants’ Guild could really just go and shove it somewhere. They tended to be some of the most annoying people in all Hyrule, despite being the most remarkable advance in diplomacy in over a century. So Paya, naturally, sticks on her best smile and says, “Hello there, how can I help you? We specialise in metalworking here, so what were you after?”

The man simply wanders over to a wall of mounted display kodachi, and picks one up, ignoring Paya’s protests. “How much for this one?”

“That would be five hundred rupees.”

“Excuse me? That’s ridiculous. For a _weapon_? A teensy-tiny dagger such as this?”

“It’s five hundred because it’s a delicate and aged traditional blade of the Sheikah, and it’s at least as old as the Calamity,” Paya lies.

The merchant frowns. “It’s unbalanced. Too weighty here and there.”

“Because you’re supposed to hold it in a reverse grip,” she says as she makes her way to another slice of cake, “And who’s it for? You?”

“Yes, who else?? It still feels unbalanced, by the by.”

“Hmpf. How so?” She pulls on her gloves and flicks her right wrist. Her appetite grows along with her awareness of everything metallic in the room.

“It feels awfully biased towards the hilt,” he says. _That’s how it was designed to be,_ Paya thinks. Regardless, she covertly leeches metal into the blade, redistributing the weight more evenly, lengthening the kodachi in small, swift strokes. But, more than that, she carefully glances over everything metal the merchant has; over, under and inside his coat and clothes. As she finishes off the blade, she makes the discovery she thought she might.

Right at his hip, heavily and carefully concealed, is a viciously sharp sickle. The ‘merchant’, too caught up in his own act, has hopefully not noticed the almost miraculous transformation of his prospective purchase; Paya has not exposed herself.

“How does it feel now that you’ve gotten used to it?”

“Better, now, I suppose. Alright, I’ll…buy it, now.”

Now painfully aware of the words coming from his mouth, Paya strains to hear the silence leaking from outside. The people have stopped chatting, the tools no longer working. She smiles, blissfully, keeping that mask on. “Very well, that’d be six hundred rupees.”

“What? You said five hundred just moments ago!”

“Six covers the labour cost.”

“What labour cost?”

“The labour cost.” Paya says flatly, “Look, it’s six or nothing.” Never mind that Paya, in her alterations, had driven the _actual_ price far through the floor. “Six, or get out of my shop.”

The man’s face convulses in stupefaction. “You know what, lady? I know _exactly_ what’ll get me that sword—”

“Kodachi,” Paya corrects. The man growls, taking the bait. He opens his mouth to cackle, ready to reveal the tight black-and-red outfit beneath, but Paya is one step ahead as the wall he so conveniently stands next to ripples and ensnares his arms and legs. “You clansmen should _seriously_ try better if you want to ambush a town, or even one little girl.”

The clansman gnashes his teeth, “By Calamity Ganon you will never get away with this! You can run but you cannot hide from the mighty Yiga Clan!”

“Eh, say what you will but I think I’ll go outside and check on your friends,” Paya says, taking another slice of cake. With a swish of her hand, part of the wall next to her desk peels back, letting in air and light from outside, and, more importantly, offering a makeshift exit.

She does not leave yet, instead grabbing one of the kodachi off the wall, another piece of cake, and _then_ heads out the back of the blacksmith.

The air outside is cold, and Paya can easily tell why. The waterways of Kakariko village have been frozen over. Of course. Those Yiga thugs don’t go _anywhere_ without announcing their presence. She squats low, peeking out at the empty village square. Of course, the Yiga Clan loves hiding in literal plain sight. Of course there’s no-one there. Sighing through her nose, Paya steels her grip on her kodachi and leaps out in the square;

“You cowards, where are you hiding? Come out and show yourselves!” She calls out while turning in a small circle.

Silence. Of course. But—Paya waits, ears perked against the slightest sounds coming from the north of the town. She readies her stance, her senses deathly still. The sound of horse hooves becomes clearer but, more puzzling to Paya, there is only one horse.

She waits as the horse—and its owner—round the corner and enter the village proper.

“A…a…man?” she hisses, furrowing her brow. The young hylian is, as far as she’s aware, just as perplexed as she is. And rightfully even more so. His clothes are a ridiculous number of sizes too small, and _terribly_ faded at that.

Naturally, the Yiga Clan attacks.

With their trademark cackles, the square explodes in activity. From the rooftops to the ground itself, every surface becomes littered with strips of red paper as Yiga footsoldiers stare down. A footsoldier grapples Paya, holding a sickle to her throat, and another one does the same to the hylian.

“What do you want?” Paya says, holding her composure down like one tries to rein a feral horse.

“The Defender of Kakariko.” The clansman holding her replies.

“Why?”

“They supposedly pose a threat to the Yiga Clan.”

“I don’t know where they are.” Paya lies.

“Oh, I think we can do _much_ better than that, _darling_ ,” he croons. The blade comes closer to her throat. Paya waits a beat. Another.

She slams her foot on the clansman’s instep and hits the pommel of her kodachi into his solar plexis, before spinning around and tripping him over and having him land squarely on the ground. The other clansmen stare for a moment. Even the hylian stares blankly.

Paya smirks, looking out at the crowd.

“You want the Defender of Kakariko? Come and get me.”

Link cannot even comprehend the last minute, and to be frank, doesn’t even have time to as the Yiga Clan descends upon the woman—either the bravest or stupidest he’s ever encountered—but the Sheikah wouldn’t tend to hand out the title ‘Defender’ generously. He would hope.

Amidst the chaos he knocks out the clansman holding him, ties up his horse—of which he still has no name for—and draws his sword.

“Are you _sure_ you want to fight, so soon after your awakening?” Sothis says as Link knocks out two clansmen.

“Sothis, now would be a _wonderful_ time to stop talking to me,” Link says, closing the distance between himself and the woman, who is somehow holding back five clansmen—and counting—at the same time, “unless of course you want me to die, which would kill both of us, by the way,”

“Oh phooey! You don’t know that.”

“Well _I_ , for one, don’t want to put that to the test.”

“Hmpf. Do as you will and save that woman. And the village.”

Link snorts. “I think at any other time I would need more saving than her.” He launches into the fray.

Sidon heaves himself up to the top of the cliff. There’s a lone tree, a pile of strange-looking stones, and the cacophony of battle from Kakariko village itself. The sun hangs in the early afternoon. He leans against a rocky wall, regaining his strength and energy from the climb. He looks down the path, to the throng of battle, to where he sees just a flash of blond hair and pointed ears take the pommel of a sword towards quite possibly the strangest person ever—a white mask with a red, upside-down eye over their face, and a red-and-black tight-fitting outfit.

He follows the path to discover a whole town’s worth of the people attacking only two.

“How despicably unfair odds,” Sidon mutters, “I suppose I should do something about that.” He leaves his satchel in the rock pile, draws his tridents, and runs down the path. The swordsman is all but swarmed by the strangers, and, while his back is turned to one, one raises his sickle to carve the swordsman’s back in two—

“No, I simply won’t allow it.”

Link pushes two clansmen over and whirls around in astoundment at the incredibly light yet sultry voice that came from behind him. The clansman that was apparently about to attack him shakes in fear, his sickle blocked by a trident, that trident held by an… _extremely_ muscular Zora as, much to Link’s annoyance, handsome as he is tall—almost twice as tall as Link.

The clansman scampers away to his unconscious companions, and in the brief reprieve, the Zora turns to Link, a smile broadcast on his face,

“Pardon my manners, but are you a Hylian?”

Link is completely taken aback, “Yes? What does that have to do with anything?”

The Zora blushes, “I’ll tell you later. I fear we have more pressing matters at hand,”

“ _Thank you!_ Yes, we do!” the woman yells in-between warding blows. “If you’re here you might as well help out—either side, I don’t care, it’ll nevertheless be interesting!”

Link takes out his shield, and angles his sword in preparation at the Zora’s side, only for the remaining conscious clansmen to scatter to their not-so-fatally-fallen comrades, and vanish in clouds of paper tassels, leaving the village square completely empty.

Almost.

Paya doesn’t loosen her grip on the kodachi. Even though they might be gone, the Yiga Clan are never truly gone. Their expedition commander hadn’t even made an appearance yet. Hylian and Zora stand awkwardly next to each other, and only now does Zora notice the coldest fact in the room.

“Wait. Why is all the water frozen?”

She doesn’t answer him, only turning on her heel to their subtle new arrivals.

The Frostspeakers stalk towards them, having waited for this moment to make this a true battle. There are three of them, each as tall and muscular as a blademaster, but the red-and-black suit has been swapped for a blue-and-white one. Not a sound comes from them. They have no weapons, for their weapon is in their very blood. The one rune that the Yiga clan holds perfect dominion over.

Each raises his right hand; the thinness of their gloves reveals the sparkling blue light from their hands. Out of the moisture of the air, the Greater Rune of Frost creates the sharpest shards of ice, said to be tough enough to pierce the hardest armour. The shards grow and quiver.

Paya can feel the iron ripple just beneath the ground. She was right to have as much cake as she did.

Hylian and Zora turn around, struck silent by the sight before them.

The frostspeakers in their deathly, silent way, clench their right hands into a fist.

The shards fly forward.

Paya tugs at the ground with the slightest force.

The sound is awful as a thick wall of iron bursts from the ground, instantly shattering the ice into a thousand useless pieces. One moment passes, and another.

“You.” The voice is deep, from behind her. A blademaster appears, his sword sheathed. “You.” He takes a step closer. “It appears that we were not prepared. Not yet. You may run, but you can never hide from the Yiga Clan.”

Paya smiles viciously back at him. “You lot are becoming terribly addicted to that phrase." She shrugs. "At least you can tell your _master_ —” she drools the word “—that this operation was not a complete failure.”

“Yiga Clan, we leave.” He says, his words laced with complete disdain.

At last, Paya knows that the village is safe, for now.

Around the village, doors and windows creak open, spooked Sheikah carefully walking out, speaking in hurried hushed tones, eyes wide and hands close, flicking side-eyes and half-points to Hylian and Zora.

Hylian looks at her, his face pale. “What was that all about? And—and, what was the, y’know, fphwwsh, schwoop chaah—” he mimes lifting something heavy off the ground, his fingers clawed, “—all about? What was that?? Magic!?”

Paya shrugs, “I’ll tell you later,” and flicks her gaze to his hip, where…where—somehow—a _sheikah slate_ rests. A. Damned. _Sheikah_. _Slate_. Agape, she stutters out her next few words.

“There’s…there’s a—uh—person I’d like you to meet, if you’ll come this way." She gestures towards her grandmother's house. "You too, uh, Zora—”

“Sidon,” he says, faintly smiling, offering a hand. She shakes it ambivalently.

“Uh, ok—you can come too, ah, Sidon. There’s just somewhere I’ll need to…to uhm…check first.”

She turns to go back to the blacksmith, but pauses. “Sidon,”

“Yes?”

“The way you entered the village, there’s nothing but a sheer cliff there. How did you get here?”

“I climbed.”

“Hmph. I suppose that makes sense.”

She leaves the conversation there, for later. “But I do need to uh…check on that thing.”

Suffice to say, and not like she expected otherwise from the Yiga Clan, the 'merchant' is no longer a wall feature in the back room of the blacksmith.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! LyteWryte here! If you're reading this, thank you??? You deserve a gold star???? You stuck through the hiatus???? (that in reality lasted far longer than I wanted it to?????) So have a beefy chapter as a reward? With the next one planned to come out soonish??? If this is your first time reading TAotW, thank you??? for seeing it in a search and thinking of trying it out???? This year has been more or less a literal mess, so i hope that my decision to start writing fanfiction (even in such a ~terribly~ niche area) has at least made some little bit of a moment brighter for someone out there. Well, this is getting rambly now, but Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy Holidays for y'all--stay safe, happy reading, and i hope you have a wonderful day!


	14. The Longer Road: Part I

“So,” Impa begins, pouring tea into her cup, “would anyone like to tell me what _that_ was all about?”

Link glances at the others, who, for some reason, decide to stay silent and look at anything but him. “I’m Link.” He suddenly gets the distinct mental image of a certain masked prepubescent green-haired girl slapping her hand against her forehead.

Impa sighs. “I already knew that, Link. I doubt one-hundred years has been kind to you, so I hardly expect you to remember me.”

“Uh, actually,” Link mumbles, “I kinda do. Your granddaughter looks a lot like you did. It helped jog the ol’ memory machine. A—a bit.”

Impa looks at him with wide eyes and a flat expression. “If you didn’t have the sheikah slate or pin my granddaughter as mine by looks alone, I wouldn’t believe you. People don’t just leave one-hundred-year-long comas without amnesia.” Paya shoots a look at her grandmother.

“Look, I don’t want to interrupt the pleasantries, but what _happened_ is that the Yiga Clan invaded the village with the _specific_ goal of coming after me.”

Impa frowns. “You don’t know that.”

“They _literally_ said that they were after the Defender of Kakariko, Grandmother,” Paya shoots back.

“Wait you’re what?” says Link, recoiling from Paya. She turns to him, wholly unamused.

“Were you _not_ paying _attention_ ,” she says, “to _anything_ that happened in the _last ten minutes?!_ ”

“No,” he retorts, “I was preoccupied with firstly, not dying, and secondly, trying to stay calm while you performed _literal_ magic against people who were _also_ performing literal magic.”

Paya facepalms and all but collapses on to Sidon, mouthing ‘ _would you please help me out here?’_ He blinks back at her, and looks to Link, and then to Impa.

“I just came to help,”

Paya groans. “O-kay…how about I just, well, _exposit_ on both of you? Hm?”

Impa chuckles at the thought, and waddles over to her cushions in front of an expansive ancient-looking tapestry. “This’ll be fun.”

Paya does her best to ignore the comment.

“Okay. Sit down, you two. I have a…story to tell,” she looks over to her grandmother, “and I’ll tell it _just_ the way my grandmother would want it to be told.” She huffs out a sigh.

“The history of the Royal Family of Hyrule is also the history of Calamity Ganon, a primal evil that has endured throughout the ages. Roughly ten thousand years ago, the Calamity emerged and in response, with the permission of the royal family, the Sheikah built the shrines and towers littered across Hyrule as you see them today, as well as the Guardians as a veritable autonomous army. They also built the four divine beasts and chose a champion to pilot each one. Along with the one that possessed the soul of the Hero and the Sword that Seals the Darkness, and the Princess that wielded the Blood of the Goddess, Hyrule managed to band together and defeat the Calamity, yada yada yada and all that.

“So, as the years went on after the Calamity, the king grew suspicious of the Sheikah and their highly advanced technology. He ordered the burial of the Divine Beasts, Guardians, Towers and Shrines, and the Sheikah to move to where we stand today and live ordinary non-technological lives. The thing is, some of us didn’t like that and decided to piss of Hyrule even more by worshipping Calamity Ganon as a deity. The Yiga Clan continued to work towards their goal of bringing back the Calamity in any way possible—usually through outright murder—and remain a blight on Hyrule to this day.

“Ultimately, it turns out that when the return of the Calamity was prophesied once more one-hundred years ago, the king thought it a good idea to reuse everything that was used just under ten thousand years prior—I’m honestly surprised that it still worked—but you know how that went, that is to say, horribly. That brings us to where we are now.”

“That’s a lot of rehashing,” Sidon says. “But I suppose you did warn us.” Paya shrugs.

“I wouldn’t be surprised, your sister, wasn’t she—”

“Champion Mipha?” Sidon says quickly, “Yes.” Link gasps, mouth wide open.

“So _that’s_ where I’ve seen you before! Last time I saw you, you were like, this high!” He holds his hand flat barely a metre above the floor.

“Wait, you’re _that_ Link?? I thought you died one-hundred years ago!” Sidon says, “Wow. That’s amazing. Oh, and everyone back home hates you.”

Link raises an eyebrow. “ _Do_ they now? I’m sure once they see my charming personality and _dashing_ good looks they’ll think differently on the matter.”

“Oh, that might be enough to convince me, but they’d hardly be as forgiving,” Sidon says with a wicked smile.

“I simply can’t bear to watch this,” Sothis says, her voice reverberating throughout Link’s head. Paya expresses much the same sentiment, nonverbally, of course.

Impa clears her throat. Loudly. “Sweetie, you got side-tracked. Link was wondering about your…abilities.”

“Oh, right. Yes. That.” Paya glances between Link and Sidon, and then down, finding her fingernails fascinating.

“So,” she says, “about the time of the schism between the Yiga and the Sheikah, our researchers that still had some of their technology began noticing…anomalies emerging in populations around Hyrule. Every now and then, someone would be born able to do… _more_ than what everyone else could. They were more attuned to the body’s processes, or they make their enemies’ possessions feel like they were on fire, or lock objects in time momentarily. But the millennia passed, and more and more of these abilities cropped up. The Champion’s bloodlines developed them. The Hyrulean royal family developed them. These days…” she looks over to Impa, confirming. She nods back. “it’s almost like every fourth or fifth person you run into has a—”

“Rune….” Sidon whispers, the pieces clicking together. He whistles lowly. “So even the Sheikah don’t know where they came from?”

“That’s not entirely true,” Impa interjects, taking another sip of her tea. “We don’t know where _most_ of them come from.”

“For _example_ ,” Paya interrupts, “we know that the Five Runes of Matter; Sight, Frost, Force, Chains and Fluid, are connected to the runes of the Sheikah Slate—”

“Of which I have Cryonis, Bombs, Stasis and Magnesis, right?” Link adds. Paya nods eagerly.

“Yup! One and the same. People like me are basically a kind of walking Sheikah slate, only more powerful. The magnesis rune, when it manifests in people, is either the Greater or Lesser Rune of Fluid. I have the Greater, which as you saw, allows me to control metal like it’s a fluid.” She reaches out her hand, and Link watches awestruck as red light blooms from it, and instantly, from across the room, a hairbrush flies into her hand.

“Woah.” Sidon mutters. “I wish I could do something like that.”

“Heh, well, if you want to find out if you have a rune you can come upstai— _arGH!_ ”

Paya clutches her hand to her head, pain spiking through her body, all of it radiating from her rune. The hairbrush clatters to the floor.

“I—I have to—uh, go, now,” she splutters, hurrying to the staircase. The pain lurches with every step—and red clouds her vision. She clambers up the stairs, throat constricting, heart pounding and pounding and pounding in her chest.

It feels like, it feels like, it feels like her own body wants to consume itself.

She completely collapses against the side of her bed, and sits up, ramrod straight, staring through the far wall.

She hears it next. It starts out as a whisper. It soon isn’t.

“Prim, Prim can you hear me? Primrose! What’s happening? Please, talk to me!” A woman’s voice. Light. Clear.

“Is she having a fit? Hol’ on, I’ll check ‘er up. Wait ‘ere.” A man’s. Lilted. Soft.

And then it descends like a filter upon the world.

The false sun is shining bright. The false tree is rough against her back. The false river rushes by in stream after stream.

It is like seeing beyond this own reality.

The hazy figure of a blonde woman cloaked in white is crouched before her. She calls out to her left: “Alfyn, are you sure you can do something? She’s nigh unresponsive now.”

“Whad’d’ya think I’m doin’ ‘Phelia? Lettin’ ‘er struggle ‘ere all ‘er lonesome?”

Paya cannot breathe. When she does, it pierces the world. It scrapes her lungs. Her fingers twitch, and then, the… _door_ opens?

“Paya?” A young woman, breath just as haggard as hers, white hair tangled, stumbles over the threshold. Her vague form quivers. “What’s happening, what have you done? What have I done?”

The words cannot come.

“Lady Edelgard, is everything alright?” A man’s voice. Deep. Panicked.

They erupt from Paya. “Edelgard, help me, please! I just want it to stop!” And she has never meant it more in her life.

“What do you think _I_ wan—”

It stops.

“Paya, breathe. Who is Edelgard? You are here. You are here. Here, have some cake.” It’s familiar, old, slow. It’s her grandmother. Impa. Yes, of course, that’s where she is. Hyrule. Her grandmother’s house. _Her_ house.

Paya throws up. And groans afterwards.

“I need to lie down. Please.” Heaving a sigh, Impa cradles Paya and lays her on the bed. Footsteps hurry up the stairs. Right. Link. Sidon.

The tall one—Sidon, looms over her. A turquoise spark of light streaks from his hand. It’s warm. Kind. Gentle. Soothing. It beckons sleep. It assuages her senses, smoothing her mind and muscles. Sidon’s next words are muffled by her fading consciousness.

“She’s had a violent –sault on her br—, part—arly on her sen—y pr—ce—ors. I’ve –ub—ed –er b— for –ow, b— — — —"

Sleep. Or something like it.

Sidon watches Paya as her eyes fall shut. The glow of his rune fades, and there is nothing more he can do for her at this point.

“So,” Impa muses, “you have the Greater Rune of Charity, Zora Prince.”

He whips around. “What do you mean?”

Impa smiles weakly. “I mean that you have the Rune of Charity. Nothing more, nothing less. A simple observation.”

Link comes up next to Sidon, almost too close, against his arm. “Is she going to be okay?” he asks quietly. Sidon nods as an answer, jaw set, his eyes searching for nothing.

“Well,” Impa says, “since you’re already up here, we might as well continue our discussion while our dear Paya rests from today’s strenuous activities.” She gestures to a carving in the floor. “This piece of flooring has been passed down for countless generations and presents all twenty-two runes.”

Sidon takes a knee, looking closer at the carving. The centrepiece is three triangles, arranged to form one larger one, and surrounding the triangle is a circle, and along its circumference are several intricately carved, smaller, circles, each with its own design.

“Well, go on then, step into the middle,” Impa says, ushering Sidon in. The moment he steps in, one of the circles lights up a brilliant turquoise colour. He fliches, taken aback at the intensity. “And there’s your confirmation,” Impa says. “You have the Rune of Charity.”

The erasure of any final doubt flows through him like a summer breeze. “Right. Yes.” He lets loose a brief laugh. “Can it do weapons?”

Impa’s smile collapses, replaced by a look of confusion. “Only if, hypothetically, said weapon has a very strong connection to a particular rune.”

“Fair enough,” Sidon says as he takes out the Lightscale Trident, steps out of the circle and places it on the floor.

Impa’s wide eyes blink for a few seconds while the room is awash in a deep blue light. There’s silence for a beat.

“Is there any particular reason you’re carrying around your sister’s trident?” Impa asks.

“No,” Sidon replies, “I just…feel it, I suppose. I’m not sure.” He shrugs, and picks up the trident, before sitting on the end of Paya’s bed. He knows Link’s looking at him, not understanding the complexity, the difficulty, the emotion that tempests inside him.

Link watches Sidon, and his heart aches for the stranger. It feels so particularly strange, having known one sibling in one life, and meeting the other in another. Yet the Zora seems so quiet, so scarily and quietly distressed.

He scatters those thoughts when he turns to Impa and walks towards the circle. “Can I try?”

Impa shrugs. “I’m not sure what you want to accomplish, we all know that you have the—” she stops when a solid, bold, indigo light erupts from the one circle directly above the triangle’s point. “—Lesser Rune of the Hero.” She trails off, struck with complete befuddlement.

“What?” Link asks, completely unsure of her reaction.

“The wood never lies; the wood never lies…but…” Impa mutters.

“But what?” Link whispers.

“You apparently possess the Greater Rune. Somehow, during your slumber, you gained a _more powerful_ version of your pre-existing rune.” She starts mumbling, talking to herself about theories and experimental proof and technicalities and possibilities.

Sidon interrupts her train of thought, though, with a, as far as Link admits, rather interesting question. “Does everyone who has a rune channel it through their hand? I mean, I do, Paya does, even the weird Yiga guys in the white outfits did.”

Impa’s eyebrows perk at the mention of the Frostspeakers, but, as much as Link can tell, it doesn’t bother her _too_ much. “Yes. Although there had been some research thousands of years ago as to if the location of the ‘channel point’ affects a rune’s power, under specific circumstances it could theoretically happen, but the effects are unknown, and there has never been such a case.”

Her eyes brighten with that elderly twinkle, and her face cracks into a smile. “Forgive me, your highness, but I never asked why _you’re_ here.”

“Oh, I…” he trails off, “I want to work towards restoring relations between the Zora and the Hylians.”

Impa laughs. “Ha! You know that’ll never happen in one hundred years.”

“Then he can travel with me,” Link says bluntly. “He can help me on my quest to defeat Calamity Ganon. From your reaction now I take it that that’ll be the furthest step towards diplomacy in a century.”

Sidon smiles wide and stands firmly next to Link. “A fine idea, if I do say so myself.” Impa shrugs, exasperated.

“Your choice then. Don’t blame me if it doesn’t go as you planned.” She looks up at the pair. “Link, can I examine your Sheikah Slate?” He hands it to her, wordlessly. Impa activates it, and spends an unnerving amount of time inspecting it.

“It’s incomplete,” she says at last, “to ensure its full functionality and capability, you’d need to visit my…sister in Hateno Village at the Ancient Tech Lab. Then, to annihilate the Calamity you would need to obtain the Sword that Seals the Darkness and free the four Divine Beasts.” She smiles. “But, do not feel compelled to leave at once—you can rest at the village inn, and pay respects to the forest spirit that watches over all of us for a safe journey.”

Link eyes Impa warily. “Okay…where is this spirit then?”

“Follow the path up past the Shrine—it’s hard to miss, and into the forest. There are old rumours about a magic spring in a clearing there. You’ll know when you reach the right spot.”

Link nods, and then looks to Paya on the bed. “I hope she gets better soon. Thank you, Lady Impa, for your invaluable guidance today.” He turns to go down the stairs with Sidon, but as Impa moves to sit at Paya’s side, she speaks.

“You’re welcome. May the light shine upon both of you.”

Sidon doesn’t talk much to Link as they climb the path out of the village proper under the late-afternoon sun. He’s only made small talk with the Hylian, such as his favourite colour (blue), favourite weather (sunny but cool), and, well, not much else.

“So, if you don’t mind, what was it like growing up, one-hundred years ago?” he asks quietly. Link shrugs,

“I don’t remember too much. I was born to a long line of knights, so it made sense that I would become one as well. I—I had a father and a sister, but I didn’t see much of them after I entered the academy.” He sighs and closes his eyes—and in that moment Sidon wishes he could capture it in time; the golden glows of sunset lighting up the Hylian’s face, making out every intricacy of his eyelashes, painting his hair out of living gold—and grimaces. “But once I manifested the Rune of the Hero, I was given the Master Sword and made to train from dawn to dusk.” He chuckles. “And I guess my path was pretty straightforward from there on.”

Sidon stops, paralysed by the urge to simply…hold the man next to him, and the knowledge that they’d only met this afternoon. “That sounds…lonely.”

Link falters in his step. “No, no, I assure you, it wasn’t. It wasn’t by any means.”

Sidon nods, and as they pass the Shrine on the pass overlooking the village. A Sheikah man stands anxiously outside, his hands clasped together.

“I remember having a happy childhood, a loving, caring family and all that—but, after…after what we call ‘The Accident’...everything changed. Everyone changed. It was like…nothing could ever be the same anymore.”

Suddenly, streams of blue light emerge from the entrance of the Shrine, and a teenage boy takes form. He grins from cheek to cheek, and runs into his father’s arms, his only words “I did it, I did it, I did it!” over and over again in a quiet, comforted voice.

Sidon takes Link’s arm; “I feel like we shouldn’t be here, intruding on the moment—come on, let’s find the spring.”

Link retrieves his arm and strides ahead, looking back to Sidon. “That sounds like a good idea.”

Sidon watches Link walk into the forest and follows. The leaves are tinged with gold, and the sunlight streams in shafts, until the shadow cast by the stones around them grows bigger. The trees come thicker, and then Link is weaving in between bushes and trees, enraptured by something further.

“Link,” Sidon calls, “why are you going off the path?”

“There’s something here!” Link replies in a hushed voice.

“Such as what?” Sidon asks, almost crawling on his hands and knees to follow Link, pushing past twigs and branches to emerge in a clearing where—

“Such as a giant bulb,” Link says breathlessly.

As soon as he says it, Sidon sees it. It’s giant and barbed and an overall very strange-looking plant, with leaves ending in orange tips that fan out from the top.

“What _is_ that?” Sidon says, recoiling ever so slightly.

“The spring that Impa told us about, obviously,” Link says, gesturing to the ankle-high pool of water at the base of the plant.

Sidon huffs, smiles, and shakes his head. He opens his mouth to speak, but not before something _else_ does.

“Oh. My. GOSH! Actual, real, PEOPLE! Unless I’m hallucinating…but that’d hardly make _any_ sense!” The voice, almost like that of a teenaged girl, then launches into a series of laughs that can _only_ be described as haughty but _intensely_ excited.

Sidon blinks, agape, and turns to Link.

“You heard that too, right?”

Link nods wordlessly.

“From the bulb?”

“Yup.”

The bulb then makes a sound analogous to crying. “OH! Please, listen to my words—I have been in here for _literally_. FOR. EVER!! I feel oh so _helpless_ and _powerless_ like this—please, could you find it in your hearts to part with…rupees? I think? Also, you know what’s sooooo weird? I have a _seriously_ bad memory. Do I know why? NO!” It laughs again.

Sidon side-eyes Link while the bulb keeps laughing. _Do you have money? I don’t,_ he mouths.

_I think._

_How much?_

Link rummages in his pocket and eventually produces a wallet. _One-sixty._

“Uh,” Sidon begins, “how much would you need, oh great bulb?”

The bulb stops laughing. “Ha! You can call me Ilde, and I’d need……like a hundred? I think?”

“Yeah, yup, that can be arranged,” Link says, retrieving five blue rupees. Without warning, Ilde thrusts out a hand—one not unlike a Hylian’s.

“Wonderful! _Please_ give them to me. Now.”

Link does as she says without a second thought.

Then, Sidon experiences the strangest thing he has in his life. Purple gas starts spewing out of the top of the bulb while Ilde laughs in complete and utter glee. The leaves unravel, revealing themselves to be obscenely pink petals surrounding a glitter-infused pool of water.

He winces at the intensity and _brightness_ of everything, and nearly collapses of shock as a woman’s form erupts from the pool as a veritable whirlwind.

“SQUEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!”

Sidon barely gets a glimpse of her bronze-colour hair, cropped short to fall in line with her earlobes and copper-colour eyes before he shields his eyes from the radiance that _is_ Ilde.

Link covers his eyes, unable to look directly at Ilde for the fact that she is most likely made out of sparkles. What he can tell is that she’s probably not wearing anything as she leans on the rim of the pool, gazing at her rescuers, and that she could possibly have four arms.

“Oh dear, I suppose I’m simply _too_ fabulous for you,” Ilde sighs.

“Uh,” Link says, “If you don’t mind me asking, who _are_ you, exactly?”

“Weren’t you paying attention? I have no clue! Now, if you’re not here to _do_ anything then thanks very much for _liberating_ me—seriously, it was like, so cramped in there like you don’t even realise—and you can leave me in peace.”

“You’re much welcome, Ilde,” Sidon says, bowing towards her in all her brilliance. Link nods eagerly, careful to not get stunned, and takes Sidon by the forearm back to Kakariko village, wordless: stunned, sparkled and downright confounded.


	15. The Longer Road: Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!Warning: Plot spoilers for Fire Emblem: Three Houses in this chapter!!

Paya knows she hurts. She aches all over. It even hurts to eat cake. Or drink water. Impa sets down the wooden bucket, again, at Paya’s bedside.

And Paya knows she’s speaking. About what she isn’t really sure. The words are falling loose out of her mouth. She needs to listen to herself.

“…anything I’ve ever experienced,” She says. Impa nods, slowly but surely.

“I agree with you that it was the most unnatural thing.” She picks up a teacup from the bedside table and takes a sip. When did she get a teacup? Since when was her grandmother sitting on her bed?

“…bucket…” Paya groans weakly, “now.”

With the next hurl, her memory crashes into her at full force. With the next she feels overwhelmed.

“Where…are Link and Sidon?” she croaks.

“I sent them off to the Fairy Fountain,” Impa replies gently.

Paya nods, once, and melts against the headboard. The exhaustion is great, but the intense curiosity at the existence of Edelgard and Primrose is greater. All of a sudden, it’s like a back door opens in her mind, and a woman’s voice—no, Primrose’s—floats through.

“Paya, are you okay?” The sound is strange. It is completely contained within her mind, giving Paya the impression of a small, yet rather acoustic, cave.

“Yeah…I suppose.” She doesn’t _say_ the words so much as… _think_ them. Openly. “Sorry about the uh, fit, earlier.”

Somehow Primrose conveys a smile. “It’s fine…I suppose. Edie and I’ve already scouted out this…thing the three of us have. Quite roomy. More than I expected. We didn’t think you’d be back for quite a while given that shock you gave us.”

“It was more than a shock,” Edelgard says brusquely, “it made me sick to my stomach and back again.”

Primrose… _laughs_? “You could see it that way—but, Edie, say hi to Paya.”

“Hi, Paya,” Edelgard says dryly.

Paya can’t help but give the…mental equivalent of a chuckle? “Hi, Edelgard.”

Edelgard chuckles back. “Anyway, like Primrose said, we’ve already had a look around while you were busy throwing up. It seems that, since what was our _first_ meeting in here,

we accidentally spiralled closer until _you_ managed to project all of us onto each other.”

“As you can probably tell,” Primrose adds, “ever since, we’ve been able to talk like this with no obvious hurdles. It’s…hard to describe but it’s…a meeting room, of sorts. You can come and go whenever you want and share things that you know instantly. For example,”

Paya suddenly has a mental image of a town made of sandstone in the shade of a gigantic slab of rock, in the middle of the desert, on a continent she’s never heard of.

She tastes the name on her…mental lips? “Sunsh—”

“Hold that right there,” Primrose says. “You probably don’t want to go around thinking or talking about the places that Edie and I come from…it makes _this_ ,” and she _somehow_ manages to gesture to all three of their minds, “unstable.”

Edelgard…nods? “Yes. While it’s fine for you to _know_ it, it’s less fine for you to _dwell_ on it, as a rather crude rule of thumb.”

“Paya? Are you paying attention?” It comes from outside. It’s Impa. She’s impatient. And…her words echo, projected, through the space.

“Ah. Yes.” Edelgard says. “That happens…as well. A side-effect. We can sometimes hear what’s going on _outside_.”

Paya manages to wrap her head around expressing a nod. “I get it, but I think I need to, uh, go now. I’ll…” she creases her brow. “be around, uh, later.”

She feels herself slide from that back door into the world where everything hurts.

“Sorry, grandmother, I was, ah, simply, tired! Yes, that’s it. Tired.”

“That’s fine, but I want to know if you’re all right after the attack today.” Oh. Of course. The Yiga Clan. They came for her. For _her_.

Paya’s mental clarity comes back at full speed. “Oh. No. They’ve found me, and that was just the beginning, if I stay here, I’m quite effectively putting everyone’s lives at stake. If—if something else like today happens but—goddess _no_ — _worse_ , I’m a threat to our safety.”

Impa grips Paya’s shoulders. “You’re the Defender of Kakariko! You can’t leave us defenceless!”

“But you won’t be defenceless! The guard has improved spectacularly in their training, and all of them are well-equipped to protect you. I promise. If I leave—pack up and go—tomorrow morning, then Kakariko is _far_ more secure. The Yiga Clan will _only_ come after me. If they _do_ come back, you can tell them in complete honesty that _I’m not here_.”

“But you’ll be so alone and defenceless!”

“I can assure you I won’t be alone and certainly won’t be defenceless.” Paya says. “I’ll be better by tomorrow—or I can go the moment I’m feeling back to my old self.” Impa seems absorbed in thought.

“I suppose your prowess with kodachi is nearly as good as mine when I was your age…” she mutters. She’s silent, taking sips from her tea every now and then.

At last, Impa speaks. “If you truly believe that you will be better defending Kakariko Village by not being here, then so be it. You must take care. And cake. But now, you need to have a good night’s rest.

Paya nods. Speaking of cake, she has another slice, and, quite exhausted, drifts off to sleep, leaving all the thoughts about her future and Primrose and Edelgard to tomorrow.

* * *

“Hello, I would like two rooms for at least the night, please,” Link says eagerly to the very fatigued innkeeper.

He looks up at Sidon, and, hardly blinking, back to Link.

“You’d need to shove two beds together to fit him. Well, maybe not. We have like…one room with a Zora-size bed.”

“Oh, well then, I’d like two rooms please, the Zora-size one, the other with just a single bed.”

“Very well then, that will be one-hundred rupees.”

“What?” Link says, “One-hundred for two beds?”

“They have very soft sheets. Sleeping in them will make you feel divine.”

Sidon crouches down and looks at Link. “But we only have sixty rupees between us!” He whispers. “Ilde took the rest of our money!”

“I know!” Link hisses back.

“Oh, a predicament.” The innkeeper says. “These bring excitement to my work. Yay.” He yawns. “That means that if your Zora friend here wants a remotely comfortable sleeping experience with us at the Shuteye Inn, he’ll need to fork out sixty rupees for the Zora room and you, my Hylian friend, need forty.”

Link bites his lip, looks at Sidon—who shrugs with a defeated expression—looks back, and sighs. “Do you have cheaper beds?”

“No. The diplomats take them. The job doesn’t pay all that well, apparently.”

Sidon, before Link can say anything else, spreads his arms and grins, “Marvellous! In that case, we’ll take the Zora room for sixty.” Link, prompted by Sidon, empties his wallet into the innkeeper’s hands.

“Wonderful! If you’ll follow me then!” He says flatly.

Sidon stares down the Zora-sized bed. It doesn’t react. Of course not. It’s a bed. It doesn’t care about who sleeps in it; who sleeps with whom—goddess _no_ that sounds wrong. It—the bed—almost stares back. Almost.

He and Link haven’t said a word since the Innkeeper—Ollie—left them alone in the lamplit room.

“I’m just as miffed about this as you are,” Link suddenly says.

“Just means we need more money.”

Link smirks. “I suppose you could put it like that.” He sits on the edge of the bed. “But he _was_ right though. This _is_ a rather nice bed.”

Sidon tentatively sits on the bed. On the other side, so that he has his back to Link. “Heh, I, uh, suppose you’re right.”

“Told ya.”

“As if I would have doubted you in the first place.”

“Pfft, right.”

“Look, at least we’re not at each other’s throats.”

“You? The Zora Prince of Positivity? And _me_? Mister I-Who-Just-Woke-Up-From-A-Hundred-Year-Nap-Yesterday?”

“You flatter me. Trust me, I’m not always that positive.”

“Really? Every impression I’ve gotten indicates that you do the best to be kind to other people.”

“Then we simply _must_ work on getting past first impressions.”

“On a day filled with first impressions? Hardly likely.”

“You think your day has been weird?”

“Yeah? I woke up yesterday—’

“Doesn’t count. That happened _yesterday_ ”

Link raises an eyebrow, now turned to face Sidon.

“Anyway,” he continues, “I got harangued by an old man, participated in a millennia-old clan feud, watched a young woman perform feats I previously thought impossible, and swiftly incited the boldest diplomatic move in a century.”

Sidon nods thoughtfully while Link pauses for a moment, almost staring off into the distance, despite the walls of their room.

“Sounds like quite the day, I must admit.”

Link blinks and looks at Sidon. “Oh, uh, yes. It has been. And you think that yours could compare?”

“Absolutely! Have you ever been blackmailed by a ghost _and_ run away from the only home you ever knew?” Sidon says.

“No, that’s ridiculous. The ghost thing I could believe, though.” Link says, sporting an _incredibly_ smug expression. “But you’re telling me that that’s exactly what happened to you today?”

“Yes! I even have proof. About the ghost thing.”

“Seriously?”

Sidon opens his satchel and pulls out the phial, empty. He eagerly shows it to Link. “See? He gave this to me.”

“A…bottle?”

“No, he was rather old-fashioned about it actually. Called it a phial.”

“What’s it for?”

“Anything, apparently.”

Link blanches. “Really? Now you’re pulling my leg.”

“No, I’m almost on top of it.”

Oh dear. With those words leaving his mouth, Sidon realises that the two of them are now lying down, facing each other, on the bed, terribly close to one another.

He suppresses the urge to become incredibly flustered. Somewhat successfully, somehow.

“I’m serious! Watch.”

As he closes his eyes, Sidon admits to himself that he’s never done this before. In his hand, the phial is like a…beacon of sorts. It calls out to something deep within him, like a subtle, all-defying drum. Not so much as focusing as letting go, he activates his Rune. It flares turquoise as, strangely, the sound of rushing water floats…through him. It almost reminds him of the times he went swimming with Mipha. Almost. He says one word.

“Water.”

And then in a splash of teal, the phial becomes heavier in his hand.

Cracked, stupefied sounds break out of Link’s throat. Sidon opens his eyes, and smiles. The phial is certainly now filled with water.

“Here, drink.” He says, giving the bottle to Link. He takes the top off, which, in the lamplight, is remarkably well-formed, with a red gem somehow set into the very core of it, and drinks.

“This _is_ water,” Link says slowly, handing the glass back to Sidon wide-eyed. “What else can it do?”

Sidon laughs. “I can try and push its limits. Here, milk as luminescent as Ilde herself.”

Sidon can’t help but laugh as Link covers his eyes from their new lamp. Well, second sun may be more appropriate.

“So what? It can do anything?” Link says, grinning, as Sidon deactivates the phial.

“So long as it’s a liquid.”

“That’s…amazing…” Link says. His expression suddenly darkens “But what about the blackmail?”

“Oh, uh, nothing much.” says Sidon. “Just that I uh, need to…not make any awful decisions.”

Link smiles, faintly. “Okay.” He inches closer to Sidon. “But that still won’t convince me that everything’s going to be fine. I’m keeping my eye on you, okay?”

Sidon smiles and, as much as one can when lying down, shrugs. “Whatever you say, Link. Just don’t blame me if you see something you’d rather not. Or if I roll on top of you in the night.” He curses himself the moment he says the words. Why he’s doing this to himself, Sidon does not know.

Luckily, Link laughs.

Maybe this arrangement won’t be _too_ bad.

* * *

“We have been _walking_ in the _desert_ for _fourteen hours_ ,” Riju groans, clutching the thunder helm shard tight to her chest. “Can we just… _find_ a place to spend the night?”

Adrian sighs next to her. “I _don’t know_ , Riju.” He ruffles Patricia’s fur as the sand seal comes up beside him. “If anyone would know this desert between us it would be _you_.”

“Then one hell of a field operative you are.”

“I worked with the Clan in _northern_ Gerudo!”

“There’s a _difference_?”

It’s Adrian’s turn to groan. “Of _course_ there is!” He throws his head back, looking at the stars above them, dotted around in a sea of deep, dark blue. The last rays of sunlight have already been blocked by mountains of the wasteland.

“Stream,” Riju warns, putting her arm out in front of Adrian. It runs swift and deep, feeding in and out of other rivulets, winding back to an even grander river. She takes in the sight, under the light of the rising full moon, and curses. “Just _how_ far south have we gotten? Another hop, skip and jump and we’ll end up in the Gerudo Sea.”

“Is that necessarily a _bad_ thing?” Adrian says.

“Yes, because it means that we’re miles away from leaving the valley.” Riju snarks back.

He shrugs, and hops over the river. “Well, there’s a solid chance that we can find a place to rest the closer we are to water.”

“I’m…not sure that’s how it works,” Riju says as she jumps over, braid waving in the faint wind. “But _sure_ , whatever you say.”

Patricia just wades through the water, eagerly hopping up to Riju’s side.

“Wait,” Adrian says, peering out into the distance, “is that a giant skeleton?” Riju comes to his side, and, after a moment, goes slack jawed.

“By the goddess, that’s _the_ Gerudo Great Skeleton. We’ve practically walked to the end of the earth!” She shudders as a chill passes through on the wind. “Well, we might as well spend the night there. It’s better than sleeping in the sand.”

Adrian eyes her askance. “Anything would be better than sleeping with the sands.”

“That’s not what I said.”

Adrian shrugs, and picks up his pace towards the skeleton. They sure named it right. It _is_ big. The yellowed remains of ribs and a backbone arch over a depression in the sand. He walks closer, his curiosity piqued by a faint blue glow.

The bones are even thicker and paler up close. As he walks through, the air feels ever so slightly warmer than outside.

“Is that…a _shrine_?” Riju says, ducking in between two ribs. “By the goddess, it _is_!” She calls out to Adrian, standing in front of a pedestal with the eye of the Sheikah engraved on it.

“What’s it doing out _here_?”

“I dunno. But it’s somewhere we could sleep for the night?”

“ _In_ the shrine?”

“Of course not. It’d be too bright to sle—what is _that_?” She’s pointing at a giant bulb, at the other end of the skeleton, not too unlike a flower not-yet bloomed.

Adrian doesn’t know how to respond. He walks up to it, careful to not step in any of the streams of water that wind around it. “Why don’t we ask it?”

“Ask it what?” the bulb says in a deep, sultry, voice.

Adrian freezes, eyes wide, and turns to Riju, who has an equally did-you-hear-what-I-just-heard expression.

“As to what this…flower-bulb thing is?” Adrian replies slowly.

“Oh, so _that’s_ what I’m in. Right. Gotcha. I had no idea. Where am I?”

Riju steps forward and waveringly speaks. “In the southwestern corner of the Gerudo desert, which itself is in southwestern Hyrule.”

“None of that is remotely useful, but thank you for trying, anyway.”

“What do you _mean_ none of it’s useful?”

“I have no idea what any of it meant,” the bulb, well, whoever inside it, says plainly. “You see, as far as I’m aware, I don’t know anything.”

“I doubt that,” Riju says. “What’s your name?”

“Alo,”

“See? I just proved you wrong.”

“I…I suppose that’s true,” Alo mutters.

“Can I…ask how you got here?” Adrian says. A moment passes.

“I don’t know.” Alo says quietly. “I just know that I’m here. I also have the strangest desire to get out of here as fast as possible.”

Riju glances at Adrian. “And how would you do that?”

“I…need power. I think. No. I need energy. Yes. Energy.”

“Well,” Riju says, “I have no idea how to go about that. Alo, I’ve been awake for almost seventeen hours, and really can’t think. Can we talk about this in the morning?”

“It’s night?”

“Yes,” Adrian says. “And since we are, you know, regular people, we need sleep.” He turns on his heel and reconvenes with Riju at the shrine entrance.

“So, what do we do?” Riju mutters, stroking Patricia.

“Sleep here and make a decision in the morning.” Adrian says. “Personally, I don’t want to leave an amnesiac alone in a bulb. We also don’t want to make rash decisions with both of us tired out of our _minds_.”

“True,” Riju says hesitantly. She looks at the thunder helm shard in her hands. “And I could use some more time to figure out if I can do anything with this.”

Adrian narrows his gaze. “Tell me you’re not planning on staying up late with that.”

“I’m not,” Riju protests. “Just thinking of things I could do _tomorrow_ while _you’re_ sorting out Alo.”

Adrian rolls his eyes. “We don’t have any food, do we?”

Riju shakes her head. “I’m sorry. We _did_ have to leave in a hurry this morning, though.”

“I know that.”

“Then why did you ask?”

“Because.”

“Because what?”

“Actually? I don’t know.” At that, Riju snorts and playfully punches Adrian in the shoulder.

“Bastard.” Adrian laughs at her comment.

“Oh, _someone_ needs to go to sleep.” As he says it, he finds his eyes grow heavy.

“No, they don’t,” Riju yawns. She lies down on the surprisingly lukewarm floor of the shrine entrance, her back to Adrian.

Adrian finds himself smiling. He doesn’t even remember falling asleep.

* * *

Zelda’s breath is haggard. Her lungs ache. Her muscles quake. Strands of green hair are plastered to her face with sweat. She’s practically leaning on the flamestaff—depending on it as another leg—by the time the waters and forests of Lake Totori come into view.

The village of the Rito is like a series of spears surrounding the main body of the village. Houses are stacked approximately on top of each other skyward, and each is well-windowed for the breeze to flow through. The main part of the village spirals from the massive perch-like rock that rises from the centre of the lake. The moon stares from high above.

She’s so close. So. Close. She pushes on.

“She’s here, Teba. The diplomat.”

“I knew who you meant.”

The news had come swiftly—early in the morning—that a diplomat was en route to Rito Village. Ever since, the town has been abuzz with talk about what this could mean for Hylian-Rito relations. A Hylian diplomat. Coming to _Rito Village_.

Of course, it was a momentous occasion. An exciting occasion. Careful to not wake Saki or Tulin, Teba dismisses the messenger and takes flight from the window. He soars on the night air, following the spiral of the village, down to the village square, where the exhausted hylian clutches a staff with a blue flame caged at the tip for dear life, surrounded by several Rito.

Every breath of hers is a shudder that collapses throughout her body. Teba steps forward, pushing his way past the crowd.

“What are you doing, standing here and staring?” he asks, glaring at the bystanders. “She _clearly_ needs urgent care and hospitality!” he hisses. He turns to the hylian. “What’s your name?”

She stares back with quivering eyes. “Ze—Ceth. Ceth.” She nods vigorously.

“Teba,” The white-feathered Rito says. His eyes are kind. His smile is easy. He takes her arm in his, and with a wave of his feathered arm, disperses the crowd. He looks at her. “Do you need something to eat?”

Zelda shakes her head. It takes so, so much effort, but she manages to point to the flamestaff. “Satori Mountain,” she says. “I need to get to Satori Mountain.”

Teba shakes his head. “You can’t seriously expect to go there in your current condition.”

“But I must.”

Teba takes her arm and guides her deeper into the village. “Now, most of these folks are suspicious of hylians at best, so don’t go thinking that you can walk around without someone with you.”

“But. I need. To go.”

Teba sighs. “I’m not sure if you’ve taken a look at yourself, but what you _need_ is rest.” He’s right. Zelda knows that. But something—something, deep inside her, her rune, her soul, she can’t tell whatever, wants to go, go go. Further. Faster. Beyond.

“If you see fit,” she croaks.

The most unhelpful thing is that Teba’s house, as it turns out, is near the very top of the town. By the time they reach it, Zelda feels as though she may just collapse through the floor. Teba guides her to a window within, past what Zelda can only assume are his wife and child, and sits her down.

“I’ll be back with a broth,”

Zelda slumps against the wall. The blue flame of the staff calls to her. It flickers and waves and dances, spiralling and twirling hypnotically. It spins, and spins, and spins.

And then Teba’s there, holding a bowl of steaming soup. He’s speaking, too.

“…where you came from?”

Zelda looks up at him. “I left Hyrule Castle this morning.”

Teba stares at her quizzically. “What?”

“I lied.” She sips from the bowl. It’s fish. It’s warm. She hadn’t realised that she was cold.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not a diplomat. My name isn’t Ceth.” Zelda glances up and takes another sip of broth. “It’s Zelda.” Teba stares, wide-eyed, at her.

“But…that’s a name exclusively reserved to princesses of the Hyrulean Royal Family, isn’t it?”

“Exactly.”

“But…the last Zelda died one hundred years ago, as far as I understand.”

“She didn’t. I didn’t. I’ve lived in Hyrule Castle for the last one hundred years.”

“That’s impossible. Hylians very rarely live for more than one hundred years, certainly not still looking as young as you.”

Zelda stares back, as if the very topic they’re talking about isn’t absurd. “I assure you. Somehow, I and my father lived a century unchanged in that castle.”

“How?”

“I don’t know,” Zelda says. “But we did.” She takes another sip of broth. She longs for…something. Teba looks unsatisfied.

“Alright. Zelda, I need to organise documents for your stay with us, and then tomorrow we can think about leaving for Satori Mountain.”

He leaves, leaving Zelda alone with her thoughts. The desire for sleep grows, as does the want for venture. The image of Hyrule Castle pounds in her mind, her thoughts wandering back. Her father. Goddess, her father. She needs to…help him. As much as she can. Red leeches into her mind—the strands and flickers of red that float through the castle, the ones she spent years chasing and twirling around in, with her father. A sensation like thorns wrapping around her mind is quiet, but yes, yes, her life back then was like a thorn in her side. She falls in thorns, in her mind, Hyrule Castle a beacon.

It is so pretty, and just out of reach. Her mind slips off into thought, her body slumping, her guiding light a pulsing, aching red heartbeat. She needs to follow it. It leads home, it leads to her father.

She flies now. She flies and dances in crimson corridors of memory, alongside the flickers and slivers of red ribbon—they are the only light, and yet they fill the hallway. They guide her gently, spinning her closer to a wooden door at the end of the corridor. She doesn’t remember this one from the castle, but it fits all the better.

The door is locked. No it’s not. It’s open—ajar, but open nonetheless. No.

No.

No.

She won’t go through. She can’t go through. She needs to be here for her father. For her kingdom. She’d like it better to dance until morning, for when she can hold the flamestaff and go on her quest with Teba.

But the door is closing. It closes faster, the lock turning. The light from the other side fades. She turns back, but the corridor is impossibly long. The door she came from is closing shut, its lock sliding closed. The bolts fasten. The hinges croak. The streams keep billowing. The locks shudder—and. but

Nothin. is lef. but bla.ck as sh.e fa.ll.s.

The bowl of fish broth clatters to the floor.

* * *

Edelgard’s eyes snap open. It’s pitch black in her dormitory room. All is quiet. She wasn’t dreaming. Certainly isn’t now.

“…Edelgard?” Primrose whispers. “Why did you call for us?”

Paya’s there as well. Edelgard knows that. But it’s all in her head. They’re in her head.

“I didn’t.”

“Then why? How?” Paya asks.

“I. Don’t. Know.” Her voice wavers.

Suddenly someone’s voice is calling out from the grounds of the monastery. It’s Seteth. He’s loud. Panicked. Edelgard gets out of her bed, and opens her door as a part of a chorus of, apparently, everyone else on the second floor.

There’s another person raising a clamour—Professor Hanneman, from the sounds of things.

“What’s this?” Hubert says, coming out of his room in simple white nightclothes. Edelgard looks him up and down and shakes her head.

“I don’t know.”

“Then we can _find_ _out_ ,” Hilda interrupts, coming out of her room in a simple white shift and a face covered in a thin layer of cream of some sort. “Come on, the stairs won’t go down themselves, and they really won’t eavesdrop by themselves, either.” She grabs both Edelgard and Hubert, who shakes free of her grip.

Edelgard, against her better judgement, lets herself be taken outside, in front of the greenhouse, alongside what probably amounts to the entire core student population of Garreg Mach, Seteth, Hanneman, Professor Byleth and Jeritza.

“What’s wrong?” someone—Ashe—asks, clutching a notebook to his chest.

Seteth glances around the hastily assembled students. “Have any of you seen Flayn?” He looks at Sylvain pointedly.

“What? No. Sorry to disappoint, but I haven’t seen her since yesterday afternoon.” Sylvain says, holding his hands up defensively. Right. It’s after midnight.

Seteth runs a hand through his green hair made pale in the full moonlight, a mixture of grief and anger on his face.

So Flayn’s missing. Edelgard glances at Jeritza, hoping he understands her question. Her question as to his involvement in all of this.

He shakes his head.

 _What_. Impossible. Jeritza flicks his head to Byleth. _Oh_.

Hubert whispers into Edelgard’s ear, just now emerging from the stairwell. “What happened?” Edelgard looks between Seteth, Jeritza, and Byleth. She whispers back into Hubert’s ear.

“Flayn’s gone missing—not by Jeritza; he was with the Professor”

“Then who? Monica?”

“But she’s not supposed to come into play yet.” She pauses. “I’ll need to have a word with my uncle about this.”

The students are a murmur of awe and confusion, each trying to figure out when they last saw Flayn, until Rhea, in a simple white dress and her hair down, hurries down from the dining hall to the group.

She turns to Seteth. “Seteth. Might I ask what has happened here?” She gestures to the students.

“Lady Rhea, Flayn’s gone missing!” he says desperately, arms pleading, eyes wide.

“Professor Manuela, too!” Hanneman ejaculates. “We were doing some late-night marking for the month’s certification exams when all of a sudden she disappears into thin air!”

Rhea frowns and glances over at one of the students, a Golden Deer, the one who came to the academy a couple months back—his name…Theo? Thierry? Arion? Edelgard can’t remember, but, regardless, the boy shrugs.

Edelgard drops to sit on the ground and looks skyward. The moon is full and staring and glaring. And then, for the briefest moment like a trick of the light, she can almost see a few streaks of red, twisting amongst the stars.

Hanneman’s description had already sent waves of shock and wonder through the students, garnering not one but two “‘How can this be?’s” from Constance.

And, seriously, how _could_ this be? Are those who slither in the dark reneging on the plan? If that’s the case then they just deserve to be driven even further underground—from existence, even. This was all meant to be so that she, Emperor-to-Be, would have enough of an army to take on the Church.

And her thoughts linger on them. And then to her conversation with Hubert. Her doubts. What Byleth said yesterday. Of how a person could apparently vanish in an instant, according to Hanneman.

Was this an experiment? An accident? The realisations—the possibilities, are daunting. If Edelgard’s honest with herself, downright terrifying. Even more terrifying than what was done to _her_.

“Edelgard,” Paya says, coming up against her mind like a gentle friend, “What’s wrong? Is it something like what we have?”

Edelgard stares at the moon. It stares back. Rhea calls out, amongst the crowd.

“Students, please get some rest now. I assure you that everything will be taken care of. There is nothing to worry about. Seteth, Hanneman, Byleth, Jeritza, please stay back please. You too, Therion. Don’t worry, it won’t be long.”

Edelgard stands up, moving to go back to her dorm.

“Well that was weird,” Hilda says in passing. Edelgard can’t argue with that. She sends Paya and Primrose her memory of the conversation with Hubert, Byleth’s comments, and the fleeting red lights.

“It’s not like what we have,” she says, in her mind, “but it is something, I fear, far worse. Far more terrifying.”

* * *

Teba turns back from the door, documents in hand. The sound of a wooden bowl clattering reverberates throughout the floor.

“Zelda, is everything alright?” He walks back inside, to the window, where Zelda has fallen to her side, the flamesaff too.

She pushes herself off the floor, and brushes strands of brown hair aside. Strange. Teba could have sworn that her hair had had been green when she’d arrived at the village. She yawns, blinks. Deep blue eyes stare up at him.

“I’m fine, I just need some sleep…I think…” she pauses, “mister birdman.” Teba puts the papers down and picks up the bowl, still with some broth in it.

“Here, finish this. Or…do you not like fish? Is there something else I can get you, Zelda?” She takes the offered bowl and takes a gulp.

“No…I love fish. It’s just…” she looks back up at him with those piercing eyes, “My name isn’t Zelda.”

“But…you said that it _was_ a minute ago. Uh, but, anyway, if that’s not your name what _is_ your name?”

She blinks and shakes her head. “It’s simple, really. My name isn’t Zelda. It’s Flayn.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! LyteWryte here! So, this is what "soonish" means. Apparently. Well, long story short but unfortunately I can't promise a regular update schedule. I'll try my best to get a chapter out once every week or so, but I can't set anything in stone at the moment. 
> 
> That being said, I still AB-SO-LUTELY intend on finishing TAotW. With that out of the way, and the fic's first curveballs curveballed (hehe), I'm completely over the moon at the support that TAotW has gotten over the past few months.
> 
> And, I've been thinking recently of opening both a twitter and a tumblr account for general/fanfictiony things--should I? Is that a thing people would be interested in? Please let me know! Anyway, I hope that y'all have a good day and happy reading!


	16. There's a Hylian in the Storeroom

The rising sun isn’t as disturbing to Teba as the young woman sleeping on the floor of his storeroom. The rays are stunning in the crisp, crisp air. A light frost coats the breeze, and beyond, the pale-blue sky seamlessly melts with the gold of the rising sun with a melodic and chaotic precision.

And yet the sun rises on a world that, if not turned upside-down, is at least tilted three degrees. Flayn is curled up on the floor, clutching a blanket in her slumber. Almost the moment she had said her piece, the poor girl had collapsed with exhaustion. The sun trails down her brown hair, voluminous in its curl. Pointed ears peek out from its mass.

With every passing minute Teba is all the more certain that the… _girl_ in front of him isn’t Zelda. Her face is too wide, her hair too thick. And probably the wrong colour. He could’ve sworn that the girl he took in last night had had green hair.

She shifts in her position, yawns, and pushes herself against the windowsill. She rubs her eyes, and, with all the volume of a yawn-filled voice…speaks. It’s more like a mumble. “Oh, brother, you simply _will not_ believe the dream I had last night! I dreamt that I went through this” —she yawns— “new door in the monastery, and that through it there was a city of bird-people! _Bird-people_ , of all things!” She opens her eyes, and blinks, and stares with her big blue eyes at Teba. She opens her mouth, and, aghast, makes something akin to a half-scream.

She scampers into the corner and stands, her black dress with its gold lining and trimmings almost shimmering in the morning light. She draws her hands in, preparing a strange gesture; “What have you done to me, foul creature? What place is this? Where is my brother? Where is Seteth?”

Teba watches her, and inches backwards. “First of all, I’m a person. A Rito, specifically.” He gestures to the window. “And… _you’re_ in Hyrule.”

Flayn flinches, dropping her hands. “Oh, dear. Well then…my apologies. Sir. I—I hope I didn’t offend.”

Teba shrugs with a faraway look in his eyes. “It would hardly be out of place to say…hateful…things here, unfortunately.”

Expressions flicker across Flayn’s face. “I…I’m sorry to hear that.” She looks at Teba. “But I must say, I’ve never heard of a place called Hyrule.”

“Well, you’re in it so you might as well hear of it now.” She flinches, and draws her hands in, and in a sudden, sweeping motion, flicks her wrist. Nothing happens. Her brow creases, mouth open. She takes three long, slow breaths.

“Have you ever heard of a place called Fodlan?” She finally asks, voice quiet and empty. She looks at Teba. “Have you? Have you?”

“No.” He shrugs, and steps forward. “I’m sorry.” He takes another. “That’s…where you’re from, I suppose?” Flayn’s aching nod tells him as much. “…I’m Teba, by the way.”

“Flayn.”

“So you told me.”

“So I remember,” She eyes Teba, for a moment. She pauses, longingly. “I suppose my brother will be searching high and low, tearing apart heaven and earth, to find me. He must be distraught. Little does he know that he’ll need to cross the ocean. Or goddess forbid, further.” She chuckles in a quiet, lost way. “I don't suppose you know how I may get back?”

Teba sighs. “I don’t even know how you got here. One minute, Ceth, or rather, Zelda, or whatever she calls herself, is here and the next…you are. But…enough from my side. How did _you_ get here?”

Flayn sits down, reluctantly, opposite Teba.

“I was…dreaming. And then I wasn’t. And then I was here.”

Flayn watches the birdman, well, _Teba_. She lets the words hang off her tongue and wait in the air. His eyes darken, shadowed in thought. His voice comes as but a wordless murmur, quiet and distracted.

He speaks softly, like the echo of an echo, in this moment. “How?”

“I do not know. I’m speaking in _complete_ honesty when I tell you in _full_ confidence that I have already told you _everything_ I know about my situation!” She stands up to face him. “So all we can do is know that no matter how I got here I’m here now and we can work on getting me _back_.”

“But we cannot hope to get you back if we don’t know _how_ you got here!” Teba replies, standing to meet her. The soft outlines and fluffs of his feathers are clearer, this close up.

“Teba, darling, is everything alright?”

Teba turns to the doorway. Well, it’s less of a doorway and more of an archway. So far Flayn can tell that the Rito are a fan of open-air wooden architecture. Not a buttress in sight. She _must_ be far, far away from Garreg Mach.

“Saki, I assure you everything is fine. Everything is _under control_.”

“Are you sure? Are you talking to someone? I’m pretty sure I can hear someone else with you.” And before Flayn can so much as blink a bright pink birdwoman—Rito—marches into the room and stares directly at her.

“My darling husband.”

“My darling wife,” he replies, sheepishly.

“There is a Hylian in the storeroom. Do you see her too?”

“I do.”

“Do you know why she is here?”

“Did you hear about the diplomat that was coming last night?”

“If I didn’t I’m sure there’d be horses flying and while they’re at it they might as well have obliterated Calamity Ganon.”

“That’s a very roundabout way to say yes.”

“It _is_ a rather roundabout way to say yes,” Flayn says.

“This isn’t about you,” Saki says. “I’m talking to my husband right now.”

“About _me_ ,”

“Yes, but that’s irrelevant.”

Teba cocks his head. “How _isn’t_ this relevant?” He walks to Saki and takes her hands (Flayn wonders: can feathered wings that are similar to hands be considered hands?) in his. She sighs and rests her head on his shoulder.

“I just…” her voice falls to an aching whisper, “Don’t want you to get caught up in anything that pushes you too far—too far to come back.” She presses herself closer, tighter.

Suddenly Flayn feels like a violent and ruthless intruder in this moment. She supposes she is, anyway, in this whole entire world.

“Flayn…she’s…the diplomat.” Teba says, pulling away from Saki. “Came all the way from Hateno. She’s…”

“…Here to spend a time with the Rito and increase understanding between our two peoples.” Flayn interrupts, unprompted.

“Yes! Yes, that’s what you told me last night, when I was the only person who could take you in!”

“It was immensely kind of your husband!” Flayn says with a grin, at Saki.

“Mhm, and what about _that_ , in the corner?” Saki says, gesturing to the sole thing Flayn hadn’t noticed yet; a pale white staff like a gnarled tree branch, or perhaps bone, with a blue flame housed in an open lantern at the top.

“It’s…my…my…”

“Her…her uh…”

“Walking stick!” Flayn cries. “The much-needed assistance in the long and _treacherous_ journey here.”

“Mhm.” Saki notes, nodding her head. “And, sorry, what was your name, dear?”

“Flayn.” Flayn says quickly.

“Saki,” she says, swiftly extending a pink-feathered hand. Flayn…quickly shakes it.

“A pleasure to meet you, Saki,”

“You too, Flayn.” She pointedly glances at Teba before leaving the room. The moment hangs in the air like damp laundry. He heaves a sigh, grimaces at Flayn, and shrugs.

“It’s complicated.” He says, slowly. Suddenly, his eyes light up. “Since you’re going to be, well, in Hyrule for the foreseeable future, what’s your opinion on fishing for breakfast?”

Flayn grins.

Any sense of normalcy, to Teba’s irritation, is quashed by none other than Divine Beast Vah Medoh the moment he and Flayn step outside. Flayn is currently, wordlessly, blinking at it.

“I…should have mentioned that.”

“The giant bird?”

“Yes, the giant bird. Although, it’s not _actually_ a bird but a…really advanced technological weapon made to look like one. A hundred years ago, it was used on our side of a war against….” He drifts off, struggling for the right word.

“Against what, Teba?”

“It's...difficult to explain. Follow me,” he says as he picks up pace and walks up the spiral that is Rito Village, until he comes to one of the highest landings in the village, and points to, in the far distance, Hyrule Castle. “Against that.”

“A castle?” Flayn says, coming up behind him, slightly out of breath.

“Sort of. You see that black-and-red cloud surrounding it? As well as the—” he pauses, squinting at the cloud. “—there! Do you see how that part looks like a boar’s head, with little beady eyes?”

Flayn lets loose a slight gasp. “I do!” Another gasp. “Did it just move? It…it looks like it could almost be alive!” She recoils. “It’s quite unnerving, if I do say so myself.”

Teba tilts his head. “Well, you’re right on the mark with that one. That… _monstrosity_ is Calamity Ganon, the force of ruin and destruction that singlehandedly brought Hyrule to its knees a century ago. Vah Medoh, one of the four Divine Beasts—the giant bird flying above us—was, so the legends say, created ten thousand years ago to fight against Calamity Ganon _then_. It was successful that time.”

“And…not so much one hundred years ago.” Flayn guesses.

Teba turns to head down the village, and beckons Flayn to follow. “Correct. The Calamity possessed it with Malice and killed its pilot, a Rito named Revali. The same thing happened with the other three Divine Beasts, and the rest is history.” 

“Yet Hyrule was not destroyed or deserted?”

“No. We’re still here today because, as the story goes, the princess of the royal family used the power of the goddess Hylia to seal the Calamity for the time being.” He turns around to Flayn and lowers his voice. “That princess’ name was Zelda. And… she would have me believe that _she_ arrived here last night,” he pauses, thinking, “before you came.” 

He picks up a faster pace.

“Oh! How intriguing…” Flayn mumbles, minding her dress on each step. “I don't think I've seen her. Tell me, is she still here? I would love to meet her.”

Teba stops on the spot and whirls around to face her.

“No. Like I mentioned _earlier_ , she isn’t here because _you_ are.”

“Excuse me?”

“Did you really not realise? Did you not give the bowl of broth, the satchel full of food, the walking stick with a blazing flame, any second thought? That one moment a green-haired hylian claiming to be the princess of a ruined kingdom is curled up in my storeroom, and yet, somehow, _in-ex-plicably_ , the next moment you are?”

Flayn marches past him, indignant. “Are you suggesting that I had something to do with…with an… _abduction_ , or—or, the _disappearance_ of a princess, who I never knew existed, of a kingdom, that I never knew existed, of a _world_ ,” she hisses, “that I _never knew existed_?” She walks down, ignoring the early-morning wind chill. “Because I didn’t. I don’t. I don’t know what is _even going on_ and I just want _to go home_.”

Teba almost winces. Something inside him clenches. He runs up behind her.

“I don’t know what’s going on, either. I…I just want to…help. Somehow. If there’s anything I could do, I would—dammit I would reach my hand across the _stars_ if it could help _anyone_ in any bloody way possible.”

“That’s a lot of dedication for someone you’ve known for less than twelve hours.” Flayn says coldly, continuing her march. “Teba, are we going to fish or not?”

“We are. If we’re done having an argument.”

“We can be done for as long as we want. It’s not going to get me home _any_ faster.” She tilts her head, and lets out a long, deep breath. “We can be done when I stop being angry at…not understanding anything for the first time in my life, and when you stop being angry at a problem you can’t fix right this instant.”

Teba glances sideways at her, when they come to a stop in front of the goddess statue at the base of the village, impressed.

“Have you always been good at that?”

“Good at what?”

“Reading people like an open book.”

“I…I suppose. I find… that it’s always easier when you get straight to the source.”

Teba bristles. “Easier in the long run, maybe,” he mutters. “Not everyone likes the blunt-force trauma of truth.”

* * *

Link’s eyes don’t want to open. His muscles, to much of his disdain, ache like nothing else. And he’s still exhausted, _despite_ having had quite possibly the best sleep of his entire life. He feels warm, comforted, gentle and…able to relax. He sinks into the mattress, and blearily opens an eye.

Pale red, delightfully smooth skin meets his eye.

Oh. He’s facing Sidon. And…that warmth, the smoothness…

.

_Oh._

Sidon is quite literally hugging Link’s right arm in his sleep. With his big, muscular arms.

Wide-eyed, Link follows the soft rise and fall of those arms, of Sidon’s chest.

And, as quickly as possible, extricates his arm from Sidon’s grip, trying not to wake the sleeping Zora, blushing furiously and _infuriatingly_ to his _absolute_ , _utter_ ~~panic~~ disdain. He scrambles off the bed (as much as one can scramble while someone else is asleep), and paces the room hastily and aimlessly, until his gaze lands on the double door in the wall opposite the bed—a wardrobe or storeroom or closet presumably.

“ _Link_ , what could you possibly hope to accomplish?” Sothis cries.

“Good morning to you, too,” Link mutters, rolling his eyes as he pulls the door open.

“You didn’t answer my question—” The closet/storeroom is almost half as large as the bedroom itself, and Link swiftly shuts the door. A beam runs across the middle of the room, probably to hang clothes off of, and the morning light comes through a slim window on the left side of the room.

The floor is dusty, and when Link sits down a small cloud puffs up, and up, floating into the shaft of light.

“I know what I’m doing, Sothis.”

“This _could_ just be me, but I think it looks much like running away from your problems.”

“I am _not_ , thank you very much.” Link says, bringing his knees to his chest. “I just need a moment to breathe.”

There’s a knock on the door of the storeroom.

“Link, are you in there? Are you all right? Can I ask what you are doing in the closet?”

“I—I’m…just getting changed,” Link stammers. He watches the motes bop and float and glide.

“But you slept in your clothes,” Sidon says blankly. "And last I checked you have no others." Link bites his lip and launches to his feet.

“Well this is embarrassing,” Sothis adds. Link sighs.

“You, are _so_ right!” he says to Sidon, “I had _completely_ forgotten!” He throws in a brief laugh as he moves to the door, opening it sheepishly. “Good…morning, then, I suppose, because—well—it _is_ , morning, isn’t it? And, it’s certainly, a, uh, good one, at that, so, yes, um, hi.” He punctuates this with a very real yawn.

Sidon looks warm, smiling that soft smile, with that quiet twinkle in his eye. “Oh, Link…you look like you should get back to sleep,” he says sweetly, softly, “No offence, but…you don’t look so well. We ought to be the best prepared for whatever today has in store, if it is indeed anything _remotely_ like yesterday.”

Link chuckles at that. Rubbing his eye rid of sleep, he says, “Sidon, I assure you, I’m _fine_.”

“You could convince me otherwise.” He steps forward and takes Link’s arm in both of his hands. “You can sleep in for as long as you need to. I mean it—”

“—But what about Hyrule? Ganon? Hateno? The Divine Beasts?” Link says, eyes pleading at Sidon. He weakly tries to tug his arm from its bed-bound course.

“They can wait until you’re well-rested. You’ll need your strength and skill, and _sleep_.”

Link attempts a protest, but simply can’t deny the softness of the bed and the heaviness of his eyes. Before he knows it, he’s surrounded by a turquoise glow and a feeling like his nerves are being bundled and assuaged in the richest silk.

“But…” he drawls out, “what about you? Don’t you have things to do, time running out?”

He hears Sidon laugh, and truly _feels_ a pulse of warmth like thick blankets on a chilly winter’s night resonate throughout his body.

“Link, for Hyrule, for the Hylians, for the Zora…I’ll stay with you as long as necessary.”

Link can hardly find the effort to reply, ‘ _But it isn’t necessary!_ ’ before he all but melts into the sheets.

Sothis hums a quiet, amused, approval.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! LyteWryte here! Oops. To be honest, I essentially fell through a chunk of writer's block in the past month. I'll...try to make sure that that...doesn't really happen again? I still stand with everything I've previously said in these notes r.e. the completion of the fic...but that probably doesn't stop life from getting in the way. Fingers crossed, I'll get another chapter out this week.
> 
> In the meantime, although it's severely under-decorated, I'm now on [tumblr](https://lytewryte.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> Anyway, I hope y’all have a good day and happy reading!


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